Blogs started showing up about 5 years ago, thanks to services like blogger, making it easy for individuals to have an online diary or journal.  It was easy for novice users to update their blog because it was simple: enter a title and write a post.  This shattered the barrier to creating content on the web.  Search engines like Google took notice that good content came from blogs and began to optimize their algorithms to rank blog content higher than static websites.

One of the most powerful features of a blog over a website is RSS (Real Simple Syndication).  RSS feeds let bloggers syndicate their content automatically.  Readers can then subscribe to the feed to automatically receive updates.  Other websites and blogs can feed your articles onto their website, further promoting your brand.  Think of the AP news service.  They write one article and it is printed in hundreds of newspapers across the world.  See the RSS feed diagram below to see how RSS feeds can drive traffic to your website.

The line between blogs and websites is blurring with tools like WordPress.  WordPress is a free, open-source content management system and blog tool all rolled into one. That means you can manage your entire website and blog in one easy to use tool.  WordPress takes all the ease of blogging and allows you to create posts and pages.  Pages are for content that is not date dependent like, about us, products, services, contact us, etc.  Posts are blog or journal entries where you can post articles, photos, and videos.  Pages and posts can be RSS feed for powerful content distribution, a must have for any serious Internet Marketer.

From personal experience, and working with my website clients, I have found that websites I build in WordPress get indexed almost instantly in Google.  The pinging feature of WordPress notifies the Google spiders to crawl and index the site.  My clients love how easy it is to publish new content to their sites and, as a result, keep their websites fresh and up-to-date.

So to answer the question, should I build a website or a blog?
The answer is:  use WordPress and do both!

RSS Feed Diagram

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