JasonOickle.com Jason Oickle's Internet Marketing Blog
If you want to deeply penetrate internet marketing world, you need a very powerful tool to advertise your product. This is best done by creating a web site. There are a lot of different concepts used for web pages today, but the two most distinct classifications of web pages would be static websites and blog sites.
These are two of the best options presented to aspiring web site owners. So, how would you choose? Which one of them makes a better internet marketing tool? Below are the pros and cons of using static websites and blog sites so you can choose between the two and decide for yourself which is the better option for you.
Static Web Sites
Static websites are your regular websites. These are the ones that are used by corporations. Static websites have several tabs promoting a company, its products, services, and everything else that a company does. Examples of static websites are the professional looking websites of corporation giants like Dell, Amazon, and Yahoo.
Pros
Static websites give users all the freedom they need. They can put all types of programming to it from text to regular html to animations. There is no limit as to what you can and cannot put on a static website. The only limit would be the imagination of the creative designers of the website. Static websites are very professional looking websites. You can put flash designs in it or even audio files so that you can connect to your visitors properly. There are also thousands of scripts that can be added to a static website that can add functionality to it as well. Examples would be shopping carts, live chat service, contact forms, and a whole lot of others.
Cons
Static websites are created by web page creator and programs like Microsoft Front Page. As such, users need to have extensive knowledge of how to generate html scripts at least. This is essential so that they can create a rather effective website. So for those who don’t, they would need to hire the services of a qualified web master. Doing that is not cheap, though. But if there is a need to make the website look professional, they have no other ways to do that. Sometimes, the services of a graphic artist and that of a programmer are two separate things. In essence, it is going to cost a person hundreds of dollars to outsource a fairly good website.
Blog Sites
Blog sites are popular today. Examples of blog sites are Blogger and Blogspot. These sites are referred to as a dynamic type of a website. Signing up for a blog site is quite easy. And that’s why there are a lot of bloggers today.
Pros
Blog sites are easy to create, use, and maintain. To setup a blog site, all you have to do is to sign up with one of the sites listed above. Plus, registration is free. You don’t need to put up any amount in investment just to own a blog site. Sign up, confirm, and you’re in. You can start blogging your heart out.
Even the steps in blogging are fairly easy. You don’t need extensive knowledge in html or anything else. For as long as you know how to surf the web, you know how to blog. Blogging is almost the same as posting on a forum, only it is more enhanced. You can upload pictures, links, and articles to your blog site with a few clicks of the button. Everything is done as simple as that.
Additionally, only blog spots are capable of RSS feeds. RSS is a relatively new concept that is used to feed the entries of your blog spot to all subscribers. Users who are interested in the topic of your blog and what you are writing can choose to subscribe to it so that they can receive regular updates whenever a new entry is created.
Cons
The features of a blog spot are limited. For one thing, you can not upload flash games and special types of animations to it. What you can upload is limited to regular graphical images like jpg and gif. And you can’t particularly indicate where and what part of the page these images would appear. You cannot host complicated scripts on a blog site either. Therefore, your blog site cannot be used as an e-commerce site with all the shopping carts that you want to add. A blog site is merely a text and picture type of a site. The pages are preset as well. Basically, you can only do minor modifications on the template you have chosen.
Personally, I think the best way to set up a blog is to host your own on your own server. This opens up a lot more possibilities with your blog and you can do pretty much anything you want with it. As you can see, I have chosen to go this route. 🙂
Have a profitable week!
Hi Jason,
Actually, I’ve been doing a study on one of my websites for about 2 months now. It started out as a pure WP Blog and was getting about 500 t0 650 page views per month. I have since changed it to a Static Index Page with an attached blog and, last month my views went to 2,948 and this month they just topped 5,600. I also noticed that people are spending much more time on my site now.
MikeRogers
This is some really good stuff. Absolutely brilliant 🙂
I’m not sure why so many people think it’s difficult to build a static website. With all the great WYSIWYG editors available today, it isn’t hard at all. You don’t even have to know html. Most WYSIWYG editors have more features and capabilities than the average internet marketer will ever need.
If you can’t edit graphics, that can be outsourced at a reasonable price. The cost pales in comparison to hiring someone to build a website.
I think blogs are fine for driving traffic to your websites(s), but they are much to limiting to be used as a main marketing tool.
I have been building websites since 1995 using Microsoft Front Page because there was no limit to my creativity but I now build blogs because I don’t all those fancy flashing animations, etc. to sell stuffs – mainly digital products.
My preference would be to use my own blog. Blogs allow more interactivity though (comments which can also go unmoderated and keep out spam at the same time).
WP is getting better now, you are able to add flash, videos, etc and not have to worry where to place them as the latest entry can be shown first.
I changed my ezine subscription website from static to a blog with a static index page. I’m getting between 500 and 1000 hits a month now as compared with before when I was getting between 100 and 300 hits. I love it. I am able to interact with my subscribers more and it’s easier than email. I just upload my ezine to it and subscribers actually read it now. 🙂 BTW… now WP even has its own shopping cart. It’s simple to use and works with PayPal.
I like building my own static web-sites. I can put my wide pan images any where and size them the way I like. I’ve been using Adobe Golive 6.0 only because i am used to it. It has a grid system that lets me place objects where I want them. With all of the scripts available, I am learning how to make my sites more interactive.
I don’t like the in-flexibility of canned Blog programs, Too restrictive for image placement & size. I’ve learned how to install paypal buttons and code & am able to create a mini-shopping cart. I’ll stick with building my own static sites.