The Benefits of Blogs vs. Websites

I was just reading a ProBlogger post by Suzanne Falter-Barns who interviewed Andy Wibbels and I found his basic overview of blogs versus websites to be quite telling:

1. Websites are clunky and expensive; blogs are lean and cheap.
2. You have to wait for someone to make changes to your website; your blog can be changed easily by you.
3. You have to wait for someone else to set up your site; your blog can be set up by you in 15 minutes.
4. You can update your blog at an airport, while you’re on the run. You have to call your webmaster … and wait … to update your site.
5. You can collect email addresses, and download free reports and bonuses off of a website. Same with a blog.
6. You can use a shopping cart to collect money for e-commerce of a website. Same with a blog.
7. You can set up a press room with all sorts of cool links and forms on a website. Same with a blog.
8. It takes three to six months for the big search engines to find you with a website. It takes two or three days with a blog.
9. You can easily track stats of who has visited your regular website. Same with a blog.
10. The media are more likely to find you on a blog.
11. You can learn more about your audience from a blog.
12. You market automatically with a blog. But not with a conventional website.
13. You can make a lot more friends with a blog.

…

In my experience so far, his list is pretty spot-on. Last year when I decided to relaunch my art and design website as a blog, to say I was aprehensive about the switch would be an understatement.

I’d began witnessing bloggers speaking of increased benefits related to the medium, but I wasn’t sure it was for me. The reason: graphic designers and artists (to me, anyway) often seem shrouded in mystery, rarely sharing much personal information. Rather, they let their work speak for them.

But, I had loads of content that I wanted to share with the world! I felt that I had something to say and the emails I was getting with marketing and press kit questions were encouraging. I had nothing to hide; I was willing to take the chance and embrace the good with the (possibility of) bad. The infrequent news updates to my website weren’t cutting it. Opportunities were passing me by because I wasn’t fully embracing the exposure that a high-traffic online medium could bring in.

During a stay in L.A. last summer, my friend Star told me about her just-launched blog and how she’d noticed a sudden shift in the amount of visitors and mentions she was getting in other publications. Right then, I decided to take the leap.

Switching from a standard website to a blog format has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made regarding my personal business. Since my blog launched six months ago, on average I’ve received three times the amount of freelance inquiries, a ten-fold increase in traffic, and many art show and book contribution offers!

If you think about it, most people are willing embrace a constant flow of (quality) information and blogs give them a way to navigate through the sea of digital content in an organized, easy to follow format that is usually organized by date and topic.

According to Technorati, there are over there are over 175,000 new blogs every day. If you have something to say or a vision to share with the world, why wait any longer?

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, I’ve found these articles to be immensely helpful:

1. Five Reasons Why Freelancers Should Blog by Freelance Switch

2. How to Start a Blog by Gala Darling

3. Online Business Toolbox: 230+ Tools for Running a Business Online

4. Monkey Bar Blogging by ProBlogger

5. How To Build a High-Traffic Website (or Blog) by Steve Pavlina