Comments on: Website, blog or blogsite – which is right for you?

By: Robert Hempsall

Robert Hempsall — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:42:31 +0000

My view on this tends to centre round what it is you’re ‘selling’.
Very crudely speaking, I think if you have a physical product to sell a website works best because you’re delivering a set of fixed information that the user is often comparing against equivalent products. Although the intentions behind product sellers blogging is noble, I tend to find they become repetitive, and even worse when they use twitter as a sales route, repeating the same offer (probably) on a set routine.
If you’re selling a point of view or expertise then a blog is far more suitable, simply because it’s a better means of communicating a constant flow of opinion.
For my site (after much messing around) I’ve gone for a blogsite because, although I’m really selling expertise, I feel it’s necessary to include examples of my product – that being the work I do.
It’s interesting reading your comments because I’ve probably gone against what you’ve discussed and emphasised categories as the means of navigation round my site. All that said, I have yet to discover whether it was the right move or not!

By: Fiona Humberstone

Fiona Humberstone — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:41:52 +0000

oh, and I should also say that there are some good website/blog combos that break the rules, but in an ideal world I’d have everyone keeping them linked but seperate

By: Fiona Humberstone

Fiona Humberstone — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:32:21 +0000

I just think it’s harder to navigate around. I’m an avid blog reader for all things marketing but also cookery, crafty and interior design blogs. I’ve stumbled upon several blogs where I’ve seen a nice, say table that the author has painted, and I’d like to quickly and easily find other posts like it. Of course, that’s what the category tags are for, but that assumes that you can see the category you’re looking for on the front page.

You’re right, it is just a question of “do my category links go in my nav bar or down the right/ left hand side”, but I think when they’re in the nav/ menu bar it just feels a lot more easy to navigate. It probably isn’t, but it feels that way

Good point though about different people wanting to read things in different ways.

By: zoe brown

zoe brown — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:37:02 +0000

I don’t really get the single page thing? – Is it not simply a case of either having the categories down the right hand side (likes Karen has) or across the top (like you have)?

The major advantage of keeping the main website menu integrated on to the website, is that for many – the blog receives most traffic (due to to people promoting posts on twitter and other social networking site). If the main website menu is displayed on the blog – then every post is just one click away from your services pages etc – especially useful for people visiting your blog for the very first time. Branding the blogs slightly differently can help with keeping the two separate if you do opt for a shared menu.

My pet hate is when people have hosted blogs and either can’t (due to the hosted blog template) or don’t include a backward link to their website…that’s a major missed opportunity!

I guess it’s all down the individual. Me – I really prefer to read blogs in date order and I am not a big fan of clicking into categories and would be more likely to use an archive section (by month for example).

Thanks for giving me something to think about!

By: Fiona Humberstone

Fiona Humberstone — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:02:34 +0000

Wow! You really could Zoe… thank you for your comments

I guess one of the points I’m trying to make is that I think you miss opportunities to engage with your reader when your blog is just one page within your website. It’s harder to flick around the categories I think and a lot less intuitive.

By: zoe brown

zoe brown — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:52:54 +0000

I agree with the blog and website approach for the some of the same reasons as you. The *voice* you can use in your blog and on your website can be different and the reasons for the content is different. The blog, as you say, is to gain authority (and I have been known to use mine to vent a bit too!).

But wordpress can be customized so that the brochure pages and the blog functionality remain separate on the site. Karen’s site is a great example http://www.candocanbe.com/ it’s all wordpress but only the blog pages have the blog look and feel.

I am not personally always keen on “blogsites” or brochure websites built using wordpress, simply because wordpress is not always a suitable CMS (although I know others will argue – won’t go into the whole pure XHTML/CSS/SEO thing here!).

However if you are using a separate blog and brochure website – the blog absolutely must be on the same domain and hosting as the main website to gain any benefits for SEO purposes. I’d also say that the menu should be static to ensure that people can find their way from the main site the to blog and vice versa, generally changing a menu without warning is bad practice. If the blog needs a menu of it’s own – it should be in addition to the website main menu.

Gosh – I realise I could talk about this for hours!