If you want to know the difference between a blog and a website, there are major and minor differences. Truth be told, more and more people are using a WordPress blog in place of a web site and pointing a domain to it.

You can do that today fairly easy and it is very cost effective. A blog is created using a “Content Management System” or web application. It allows you to get your site up and running quickly. Blogs are great for writers or journalists who want to be able to write articles or post content updates easily. Blogs are also great for small business owners who have low budgets but want to get started on the web.

Content Management Systems or (CMS) are for managing web content in a user-friendly browser interface. It prevents you from having to know formal web design. Content Management Systems were initially created in a corporate setting o help manage a large amount of content and when there was more than one person writing articles or publishing web content. It helped keep everything in order. About dot com is a good example of one of the first types of blogs done on a large scale. In these cases, or in the case of a corporate web site, there are programmers who set up the CMS technology and user permissions and features and customization & security to make it work; and there are “content managers” who simply write articles or create content – photo/video, etc. to go into the site.

I like to equate working on a computer or its technology to a car sometimes.  Just like there are several competitive brands of the same types of cars, there are competitive brands of CMS. Each have different features. You have to find out what works best for you. Test drive a few.

Content Management Systems can be developer hosted or user hosted, meaning you host or run the blog on your web space. If the developer hosts your blog, like Blogger dot com, it means you have an account and space on their web site. The functionality, design and space is at the discretion of the developer.

If you host the blog on a site where you pay for the hosting, you control how much space you have and you can even control the features and functionality of the blog. You can manage the site yourself once your developer sets it up for you.  Many people don’t want this concern of having to learn how to set up a system and go through a learning curve of a new software. Examples of Content Management Systems include WordPress, Joomla, SharePoint, and others. They all allow owners to create their own content, upload photos, allow visitor registration, visitor comments, add pages, and blog from within their system.

When you get into creating a blog for business purposes, here is where blog vs web site requires a little more consideration and planning. A blog should be an extension of you current web site. It is the personal side to your web presence. The customer can’t see you but they can interact with your blog. A web site is generally functional and informational. A simple blog, the average user can set up for themselves, but if you have specific features you need in a blog, it is better to hire someone to set the blog up to your business specifications and you can manage it once it is set up. The advantage to this is you will be provided with proper training and will have someone you can go to for questions.

What’s the difference between a blog and a web site?

A blog is a web log in which the site owner interacts with his or her audience by writing regular content of some value and allowing them to comment and be a part of the website.  Blogs allow you to communicate with your customers and educate them about your products or services so they can make informed choices or get the best use out of products they bought from you.  A blog is also a form content management system that does not require you to learn programming and design.  It can be a part of your site or separate from your site.

A web site is designed from scratch and customized to your business needs and specifications.  It is the business part of your website.   It can be the store or it can be the part of your website that collects information or allows users to perform some kind of transactions on your site, etc.

Companies need Content management Systems to manage content when information needs to be changed or updated regularly.  Content Management Systems allow you to not have to worry about design.  You have it designed and set up once, and then assign staff to manage content that goes into it.

Blog Vs. Website

In the case of blog vs website a blog is easiest to implement.  You can be up and running in less than a week depending on how simple you want to go with a blog.  A website can be relatively simple to create and publish, but functionality has to be manually built in and requires additional programming.  While people may not look at it this way, a blog is a web-based software program that is installed on your web server and is connected to a database.  A website may be connected to a database but a database is not required to run a website unless the site calls for it.

Whether you select a blog in lieu of a web site, add a blog as an extension of your current web site, or whether you need an enterprise solution content management system, careful planning will help you determine the best course of action for your organization.

The difference between a website and a blog can be very transparent to your users with careful planning.