website or blog?

[coolguythampy]

I am planning to start a website/ blog whichever is appropriate. I would be adding regular contents. I would also like to add feature to allow people to ask me to write a review for their product or service. A kind of blog review service + general blogging. I would also like to put advertisements in my site. Is a jhoomla or drupal website better for this or should I sign up for a blog?
If blog please suggest which one to use wordpress or blogger. I would buy a custom domain if I choose a blog service
Advice greatly appreciated

[tangor]

You can go either way... site or blog. Look to YOUR time to post/develop and make the decision. For me it just seems easier to crank out the pages for a website than deal with blogging software.

[coolguythampy]

I decided on wordrepss. I am outsourcing 50 articles to be written. So will it be better to add all the 50 articles to my website in 1 day or wait and add say 2 posts per day?

[ergophobe]

I'm far from an expert on the SEO aspects of this, but here are my thoughts.

I would add them as they are completed in a sort of natural fashion, just because of administrative hassles (i.e. do it now).

Otherwise, it depends on how you have things structured. 50 pages isnt' that many, so they should all get crawled. If you have a "recent articles" box on the front or if your front page is blog style with the most recent articles there, I would probably let a given set of articles get crawled and indexed, and then add a batch an bump those off.

If you imagine this being a blog with many many pages beyond the first fifty, you'll probably want to get people to subscribe to your RSS feed and stay subscribed. Getting them to subscribe requires that you have a set of worthwhile core articles to show that your site has some substance. Nobody is going to sign up for the feed on a site with four articles. To get them to stay subscribed, you need to have a flow of articles that keep people interested. So if you post, say twenty at first, let the site get crawled, and then add an article every three days, that gives you three months of fodder for your RSS feed.

You can take articles in that batch of 30 that are not timely and hold them in reserve if you have news items to post.

But again, that advice RE the RSS subscribers only applies to certain sites.

[coolguythampy]

I have a website with PR 1 now. is it better i add a wordpress module to my website and start blogging in that and later take it to a review blog or is it better to host it individually?

[ergophobe]

You could add HTML files or wordpress software to your server, or you could set up blogger or wordpress.com to use your domain.

So if you want to have it on your domain, that doesn't really impact which way you go AFAIK.

[bilalseo]

you must start with blog, and use wordpress or blogger platform. Blogs can be provided better way to write posts and then publish them without facing hassles. One more reason of starting with bloggin is to achieve unique contnent visibility in search engines. As search engines like blog posts very much.

[tonynoriega]

you must start with blog, and use wordpress or blogger platform. Blogs can be provided better way to write posts and then publish them without facing hassles. One more reason of starting with bloggin is to achieve unique contnent visibility in search engines. As search engines like blog posts very much.

i have to disagree.. no you dont HAVE TO start with a blog.
you can start with a pure html site and be just as successful.

i dont know what hassels you face when using HTML over a blog, but have never faced hassels when publishing my content to my site. if you have a good style sheet in place, and a good css template your published content should not take any longer to get online, granted your HTML skillset is a consideration.

One more reason of starting with bloggin is to achieve unique contnent visibility in search engines.

not sure what this means but i dont agree with this either. blogging has no SEO advantage over regular HTML design. your HTML page would just as unique as a blogged page..

yes search engines like blogs, but they like a pure HTML or CSS site just as well...

so blog or pure HTML doesnt matter... as someone stated.

you could do both if you want... pure HTML CSS site, and add a blog...

[bilalseo]

who say that blogs are not SE friendly... their structuring totally based on SE rules.... I disagree with you... html has its own place but you can't say that blogging is not a good idea... yes I may agree on one thing that if the site has limited contents or fix contents, you must start with html site with perfect CSS...

please see the benefits of blogging below:

We all know that the more quality, unique content we can create the better off we will be. We also know the power of social marketing. There are many reasons for the increased popularity of blogs in the SE's and with everyday people. But I will go into detail about the top two which are:

- Frequent Unique Content Updates: Whether you use wordpress, blogger or some other blog service; the main theme is the same, an organized way to distribute your own unique content to the masses in a journal type format. When you create new content on a normal web site you must first come up with a style then add Meta tags etc. With a blog all of this is done for you and you can concentrate on the most important thing, content. Many bloggers go a step further and place other peoples articles on their blog on a daily basis. These articles are taken from article directories and the signature block must be added along with the article body. This creates the opportunity to create a massive web site with very little work.

- Viral Marketing: Since most blogs are updated frequently with unique content, many people keep up with their favorite ones. The same people tell their friends who tell there friends and on and on. This is basic viral marketing and it is one of the best things that can happen to a web site. A personalized blog that provides valuable information on any particular thing can very easily start a viral marketing trend.

If you can make a post everyday to your blog and get the SE spiders coming back frequently; they will continue to see the new content and give you higher SERP placement. Find one of the many Google Adsense plugins and install it. Now you have people coming to your blog, clicking on your ads and making you money.

The popularity of blogs has grown at an alarming rate in the past few years and I believe that it will continue to grow for a very long time. If you are into Internet marketing and you have not yet started a blog it would be a wise decision to do so. If you do not even know what Internet marketing is, its ok. You can get your own free blog and set it up very easily to start making money right away.

thanks,

bilal

[tonynoriega]

who say that blogs are not SE friendly... their structuring totally based on SE rules....

i never said that a blog is not SE friendly, i said you dont necessarily "have to" start with a blog to get online or to get on the SERPS. Also, blogs are not "totally" based on SE rules... blogs are based on HTML and CSS... the SE comes from the developer of the blog application or the webmaster to make it SE friendly. Granted they incorporate SE elements like <h1> and other header tags, allow for image alt="" and title="" input, and fresh content... but i can do all of that with my static pure CSS and HTML site... i have actually updated my site more than some blog sites i visit.

I disagree with you... html has its own place but you can't say that blogging is not a good idea...

now you are putting words in my mouth, i never said bloggin wasnt a good idea, i said it has no advantage SE wise over a static CSS or HTML site...

yes I may agree on one thing that if the site has limited contents or fix contents, you must start with html site with perfect CSS...

you dont need "perfect" css.... if you mean validated, then yes, that helps, and perfect css comes fromt they stylesheet itself, obviously if it is malformed, you arent going to get the results your expect.

please see the benefits of blogging below:

We all know that the more quality, unique content we can create the better off we will be. We also know the power of social marketing. There are many reasons for the increased popularity of blogs in the SE's and with everyday people. But I will go into detail about the top two which are:

- Frequent Unique Content Updates: Whether you use wordpress, blogger or some other blog service; the main theme is the same, an organized way to distribute your own unique content to the masses in a journal type format. When you create new content on a normal web site you must first come up with a style then add Meta tags etc. With a blog all of this is done for you and you can concentrate on the most important thing, content. Many bloggers go a step further and place other peoples articles on their blog on a daily basis. These articles are taken from article directories and the signature block must be added along with the article body. This creates the opportunity to create a massive web site with very little work.

- Viral Marketing: Since most blogs are updated frequently with unique content, many people keep up with their favorite ones. The same people tell their friends who tell there friends and on and on. This is basic viral marketing and it is one of the best things that can happen to a web site. A personalized blog that provides valuable information on any particular thing can very easily start a viral marketing trend.

If you can make a post everyday to your blog and get the SE spiders coming back frequently; they will continue to see the new content and give you higher SERP placement. Find one of the many Google Adsense plugins and install it. Now you have people coming to your blog, clicking on your ads and making you money.

The popularity of blogs has grown at an alarming rate in the past few years and I believe that it will continue to grow for a very long time. If you are into Internet marketing and you have not yet started a blog it would be a wise decision to do so. If you do not even know what Internet marketing is, its ok. You can get your own free blog and set it up very easily to start making money right away.

Thats all fine and dandy, but your argument seems to continue down the path that a blog has better and more SE benefits than a pure HTML or CSS page... which is incorrect. If you know code and SEO and are proficient at it, then it doesnt matter if you start a blog, or pure CSS / HTML site you are going to get in the SERPS.

so from this you are telling me that a blog about widgets is going to get higher rankings in the SE's than a static information site about widgets(CSS or HTML) that is updated as frequently ?

[bilalseo]

no... I never say like that.. but blogs gets higher rank than a site made in html... bcz bloggin is an art of doing and explaining things quickly... thats why google likes blog based websites... you can see how google supports blogger.com :)

[bilalseo]

one more thing I'd like to add here.. I'm in this business since 1999 and I have experienced many things and went through it... I'm here to help people in a good manner not to even fight with anyone or to create disgrace for someones reputation. :)

[tonynoriega]

thats fine, but i just dont agree... im a lover not a fighter..

BUT show me documented evidence that a blog in general get higher rankings in search engines that an information based or ecommerce website...

you think that is in Googles and Yahoos algorightms? that blogs should be ranked higher than a manually developed website?

[ergophobe]

Blogs can rank, of course, but there's nothing special about a blog. That's the essence of what Tony said, as I read it, and I have to agree. I don't have any evidence that the SE algos favor blogs.

Given equivalent content (quality, quantity, freshness, etc etc), I would say that blogs are more likely to have problems ranking because of secondary issues that aren't inherent to the form like duplicate content issues, poor navigational structure (i.e. date-based navigation and archives) and so forth. But that's just a consequence of accepting default options and can plauge e-commerce sites with respect to their catalog as well.

Properly done, I don't think a blog is at any disadvantage either.There are a few resources that you can leverage by having a site that either is or includes a blog, such as pinging technorati, though nothing really prevents you from registering your site and pinging technorati every time you add a page.

Blogs aren't special. What is special is good content.

So all of this begs the question....

What IS a blog? As far as I can see, a blog is a site or part of a site (perhaps a single page as for the WebmasterWorld blog [webmasterworld.com]) that has regular updates that roll onto and off of a the blog root page (whether that's site root or not). In other words, it's a log, on the web, aka a weblog, otherwise known as a blog.

- Why is "blogging the art of doing and explaining things quickly"? Blog posts could easily be the careful ruminations of a serious researcher. In fact, some of the best blogs are. There's nothing inherent in the form that says the posts are done quickly or frequently. Mine certainly aren't! I've been working on a post for about two months now.

- "blogs gets higher rank than a site made in html". Every blog that I know of except one [webmasterworld.com] is made with HTML. This is like saying Toyotas are better than cars with internal combustion engines or something. Typically, that HTML is generated by some platform like Wordpress or B2evolution or such, but it's still just HTML in the end. I haven't built a hand-coded, totally static HTML page since about 1997, but all my pages are served up as plain old HTML (even the ones from before I saw the light that claim to be XHTML 1.0 Strict, like 99.9% of the XHTML pages out there, but that's another topic).

- Why can't a blog be "developed manually?" Granted, they typically aren't, but the WebmasterWorld blog [webmasterworld.com] is or at least appears to be. Perhaps more to the point, though, very few non-blogs are "developed manually" either.

Is a site built on Wordpress with a pre-planned architecture designed to fully cover a topic and that adds pages two per week and announces them on the front page in a "what's new?" box a blog? No, certainly not. The platform does not make the thing. But it has fresh content that's being constantly updated, which should keep the crawlers coming back. And that fresh content may get a brief "trial rankings boost", especially if it's on a timely matter, which it will lose if it doesn't have traction. And if it's good, evergreen content, the site will pull in traffic long after the pace of content addition slows down.

Is a page, hand-built in HTML that puts a dated mini-review of my last home-thawed meal at the top of the page a blog? Personally, I would say yes. Assuming I'm eating the same stuff I always eat, is Google going to like that site? Absolutely not. There's no shine to blog that has content as poor as my diet. Why would such a thing have special super powers just because it's a blog?

Must a site have perfect CSS to rank? No, nor does it need perfect HTML. At the last PubCon Matt Cutts said that he didn't think Google would ever consider valid CSS or HTML in the algo because 98% of sites don't validate. Will a validated page tend to function better on more platforms and therefore be more likely to attract a link and thus rank better? Possibly, but Google doesn't care one whit whether your CSS validates. Google also doesn't really care whether your HTML validates, but your invalid tag soup *could* make the site harder to crawl and that would be a problem.

[bilalseo]

sir you can see bloggers, wordpress with easy navigation, easy to moderate, easy to handle. If blogs are not well ranked then why Google is running its money making service (blogger) and why wordpress is in business? questions are there but no one can answer perfectly. I'm 100% agreed with you that unique contents can rank up a site better than a site with pure validation or a site completely validated by w3c. I've a client website which is not properly validated, but has wow contents (unique contents). Google can not read offsite (server side contents), it only reads onpage (html/body) area of the website. So you can not say that a validated CSS can rank up your website, but a site with proper navigation, well defined categories, well defined file extensions, image optimization, etc can get a better rank in all search engines. Moreover, I've another client website which has fixed contents, but their blog gives me many opportunities to make thier site SE friendly (continous addition of contents can take your site up). I think I'm going little off topic, but it is very necessary to understand that facts. I never wanted to go against anyone... as all could have their personal opinions :)

[tonynoriega]

bilalseo, you are cracking me up i love you man...

sir you can see bloggers, wordpress with easy navigation, easy to moderate, easy to handle.

yes, blogs like wordpress are easy to handle. CMS content management systems were made for that... for ean easy way to publish content without having to know the code that lies behind it.

If blogs are not well ranked then why Google is running its money making service (blogger) and why wordpress is in business? questions are there but no one can answer perfectly.

blogs can be well ranked yes, but again you seem to be trying to separate a blog from website. If you look at the code of any blog, you are going to find the same thing.. HTML and CSS most likely.

you find that same thing on my static website.... HTML and CSS. and isnt Google's blogspot.com a free service?

So you can not say that a validated CSS can rank up your website,

ergophobe did not say that at all.

but a site with proper navigation, well defined categories, well defined file extensions, image optimization, etc can get a better rank in all search engines.

website or blog? doesnt matter does it...aha... busted.

Moreover, I've another client website which has fixed contents, but their blog gives me many opportunities to make thier site SE friendly (continous addition of contents can take your site up).

what SEO can you do to a blog that you cant do with any other website?

I think I'm going little off topic, but it is very necessary to understand that facts. I never wanted to go against anyone... as all could have their personal opinions :)

well now thats totally a different story... if you would have said that your opinion is that a weblog has the potential to perform better in SERPS than a website, thats one thing... but when you claim that is a fact, when its not, thats another.

its all goood though brotha... just a little friendly discussion...
gets the blood going.

[reprint]

I also agree that there no special advantage to a blog or a website.
"If blogs are not well ranked then why Google is running its money making service (blogger) and why wordpress is in business? "
Noone said that some blogs are not well ranked. Blogs can be well ranked just like websites are just well ranked. I dont see any evidence for either being treated differently by the search engines.
"Moreover, I've another client website which has fixed contents, but their blog gives me many opportunities to make thier site SE friendly (continous addition of contents can take your site up). "
You could just as easily add new pages to the website with the same effect. Again there is nothing special for SEO about a blog.

The biggest downside to a blog is that it requires a lot of work to continuously author content. Secondly it is very obvious when a blog is neglected because it is date based. That can cause people to abandon the blog and to abandon the associated website causing the opposite effect. A blog purely for SEO for these reasons is probably not a good idea because it will not be sufficent motivation to make regular postings.

[bilalseo]

reprint, I said that I have a client website which is fixed by contents ( I meant there are few pages like about us, contact us, servics, products) they have their fixed products, i ran up their blog since 3 years with the help of content writer. If I hve fixed me up for only few contents like I have mentioned there like aboutus, services, etc then no chance of getting well ranked in search engines. So blog posts helps me to get up early in the morning and to force SE crawlers to read me up I'm on time boss :) You can search for some search engine related questions in google, you will get matt cuts blog posts... why because blogs are totally based on SE rules, like you can create a url that reflects SE liking (widget-green.php) you can write SE friendly page title (Green Widget - Sell and Purchase Center). One more thing of doing blogging is to get unique contents on daily bais. I love to work with bloggers, as they are more intellegent as compare to a normal person. :) I have a blog website which is purely created in .aspx (shocking) and I have handle that eaisly by adding contents manually. What so ever if it is in aspx, but it realise me to wake up and to get up early in the morning for write up.

[tonynoriega]

ok here are my final comments and then i give up....

You can search for some search engine related questions in google, you will get matt cuts blog posts... why because blogs are totally based on SE rules

what else do you get? a boatload of non-weblog based sites...

blogs are not "totally" based on SEO rules... they are based on content management system rules. what you have are developers who create addons and plugins that make the weblog more SEO friendly...

like you can create a url that reflects SE liking (widget-green.php) you can write SE friendly page title (Green Widget - Sell and Purchase Center). One more thing of doing blogging is to get unique contents on daily bais.

i can create the same file names on my non-weblog site too..
www.mydomain.com/repairing-blue-widget.html

what is my title? <title>Repairing Blue Widgets</title>

I love to work with bloggers, as they are more intellegent as compare to a normal person. :)

i dont even know what to say about this one... what does that mean? bloggers are nothing more than content writers... and no, content writers are not normal, got two of them sitting right across from me and they could pass as a pair of boulders sitting on a mountain side...

you are still trying to differentiate a weblog as something other than a website that gets updated often...

[edited by: ergophobe at 7:30 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2008]
[edit reason] exemplified/removed specifics [/edit]

[bilalseo]

blogger usually experiencing things and then implemented. just about a hockey player can't play a match perfectly if he is abnormal or untrained.... in past blogs are not SE friendly but now they are fully equiped with latest addons and plugins... that for sure a balance machanisim. Blogs are easy to handle, easy to operate, easy to undesrtand ( that a non-professional can do better) for html based sites you need to hire a professional with high skills. Few people know how to trasfer files from system to ftp and how to create a page in dreamweaver and then upload that on to server through ftp.... very few people know how to write html code and how to DHTML/java script/vb script/aspx/ etc... but blogs can provide a platform that perhaps a great idea of doing things in a sufficient manner.

[reprint]

Bilalseo, now i understand where the problem lies. You are mixing up the software packages that are available with the definitions of a website or a blog. The definition of a website or a blog has nothing to do with the software that runs it.

For example, I use Wordpress to run websites and it works perfectly fine. I have also used it to run blogs. Joomla or Drupal are content management systems that are easy to use and mainly used for websites but you can just as easily use them for blogs.

If you start to understand this difference, it will help you focus on websites and blogs, rather than the software running them and then you will realize that obviously the search engines are not going to treat them differently.

[hukumat]

Wordpress is the best in today's word.
It's much better if you add content day by day....
Sea4rch Engines loves that technique.

[ergophobe]

Well, it's the most popular. But then again, the Ford F150 was the best-selling vehicle in America for years. And before that, so was the Ford Escort (the American version, not the much snappier Euro one).

Popular != Best.

I'm not saying that it is *not* the best, just that it's open to question. Hey, Ford Escort was my first new car - and I've still got it. Much better fuel economy than my truck.

[enigma1]

I am using osCommerce for pretty much everything web-related, blogs, forums, carts etc. But there isn't a standard really to say what's best. It's what you're familiar with and so you can customize your site regardless of web-engine.

Just to add to ergophobe's comment:
Web Engine Customized != Stock Web Engine, (Remember that VW in F&F?)

[coolguythampy]

I had a website which ranked 1 in just about 1 month. but my new blog is not doing well in terms of ranking. I am adding unique contents almost every day. Dont know why. Hope i get a rank soon. Patience is virtue i guess. But when it come's to our own case the thing is different.

[edited by: ergophobe at 6:40 pm (utc) on Dec. 21, 2008]
[edit reason] No personal URLs please [/edit]