Blogging is simply put, maintaining an online journal.
There are many platforms where one can create an online journal and start communicating with an audience. Some of the most popular blogging platforms are WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Livejournal, Ghost, Pen.io, Weebly
Blogging may refer to any of the following
- Someone who creates and maintains a personal blog and writes about things he cares about.
- Someone who creates and maintains a personal blog and writes about things he knows out of personal interest.
- Someone who creates a business blog, writes about things he loves and makes business out of it.
- Someone who creates or maintains a business blog for a corporation or a company.
- Someone who creates or maintains a business blog for marketing a service or product.
- Someone who runs a non profit and creates or maintains a blog for awareness of the non profit Organisation.
- Someone who writes and maintains a blog for educational purpose.
- Someone who writes and maintains a blog for recreational or entertainment purpose.
And so on.
These are some, if not all the ways blogging is used these days. Blogging is hence a way of generating content, publishing it online and communicating with an audience.
Terminology
Let’s get ourselves familiar with some basic terminology.
- Blog – A journal or diary which is maintained on the internet in the form of a website.
- Blogger – Someone who writes a blog or creates content on the blog.
- Blogging – The act of writing a blog is called Blogging.
How is a blog different from a website?
There are quite a few contrasting differences between a blog and a website. Every blog is a website but not every website is a blog. Hence, a blog is a subset of the “Website” set and a blog can be often referred to as a “Website”.
Here are the differences between a blog and a website
- A blog is interactive. A blog communicates with an audience through an interactive layer (comments, tweets, messages). A website does not communicate with an audience the way a blog does. A blog is a two way conversation between the blogger and his audience but it is essentially not the same for a website. Also, a blog is a platform for readers to interact with each other around a given conversation. A website doesn’t allow its users to communicate with each other.
- A blog is personal. A blog has a personal touch which a website does not has. A blog is all about a personality, a theme, a motto. A website carries a more professional tone.
- Static and Dynamic content. A blog’s content is dynamic in nature. The blog is updated regularly and contains fresh content while the website is not updated that frequently.
- Ideas Vs Offerings. A blog is all about ideas and concepts. A website is about what it can offer to its audience. It is not that a blog can have no offerings, it certainly can have offerings. But a blog is worth nothing if it does not create value in the form of ideas. A blogger needs to create value in the form of ideas and win the trust of its users, only after that it can pitch in its products, services or whatever it is trying to sell. A website is more direct from that point of view.
- A blog is always evolving. In case of a blog, many things contribute to its evolution. The type of content that the blogger creates, the readership, niche, how readers spread the content and so on. The evolution of a blog depends largely on the audience, who is reading it and what they are doing once they visit the blog. However, in case of a website, the evolution depends on the owner of a website and not on its users. It is the website owner who decides what services, products or offerings will be listed – users have only one thing to do. Either choose to avail the products or services or walk away.
To wrap it up, a blog is a personal journal which regularly interacts with an audience through content, ideas and posts. A website is a set of web pages which are more professional in nature and often used to list products, services and other business offerings.
Should I start a blog or a website?
This is one of the common questions most people have when they decide to improve their online presence.
Should I start a blog or should I start a website? Which one is the right choice for me?
It depends greatly on what you are trying to achieve. If you are a small company and provide solutions to businesses or sell something online, you can start with a website and list all the products and services that you offer. Typically, a web development firm, an ecommerce store, a product or a specific service provider use a website.
However, if you are a subject matter expert an want to sell your services or offerings through ideas, you should choose a blog and not a website. This is because when it comes to selling ideas and convincing people, a more formal tone is required. A formal tone is not possible without continuos proactive communication, which is possible by generating new content regularly.
When you create new content and make it available to your audience in the form of blog posts, you generate fresh value which people want to read. If your ideas are useful and solve a problem, people will trust you and visit your blog often. This will slowly build credibility and once that has been done, you can convert it to your business objective.
These days, even websites use blog for online promotion and outreach so blogs have become a viable medium for market acquisition. A blog is already a fundamental digital asset for anyone who wants to attain online influence so if you are planning to start a website, you should also start a blog and write interesting content related to your industry. This way, you will be able to build credibility, loyalty, trust faster which will eventually convert into more business for you or your company.
I hope this was useful. If you have any questions or any doubts, please feel free to post it in the comments below.