As the number of blogs and website rise every day which is statistically about 150 blogs/day there is a need for every person alive at this moment to know the difference between blog and website. There are many webmasters who call their blog a website and vice versa to clear this doubt I have typed this article, it will be a short piece of advice read it to get yourself cleared between the difference.
What's a Blog?
A blog is a series of content (called "posts") that are usually organized by date with the most recent post showing first. Many blogs also have the posts organized by category for convenient browsing.
They have comment forms at the end of every post that allow the readers to give the author feedback and interact with other readers.
Blogs (taken from the phrase "web logs") were originally created for personal journaling. Now people use them in place of a website, or in some cases, they own both.
When to Blog?
Blogs are best when you have a topic that compels you to write fresh information on a consistent basis. That's why a lot of news-oriented websites are moving toward blogs.
People who read blogs often use a functionality called RSS, which allows them to subscribe to your blog's content with an RSS reader.
When they open up their reader, they can see the latest headlines from your blog at a quick glance. That's why it's important you choose a topic where you can provide fresh content on a regular basis. Otherwise, people may stop reading your blog if they see you aren't writing enough new content.
Creating a Blog
In order to create a blog you need to choose a platform. The two most common blog platforms are WordPress and Blogger.
Both platforms are free and provide user-friendly editors for you to publish your content. No programming or additional software is needed.
If you do decide to go with a blog, I'd highly recommend that you register your own domain name and have a self-hosted blog instead of using the free blog hosting platform.
You want the address of your blog to be something like yoursite.com or blog.yoursite.com instead of yourblog.wordpress.com or yourblog.blogspot.com.
What's a Website?
Just like a blog, a website is a collection of content called web pages. Unlike a blog, the pages are not usually organized by date.
With websites, you have a more control of your site's layout because it's easier to work directly with the code.
Now, of course, if you take the time to learn CSS, HTML, PHP, etc. you can change the layout of a blog as well. However, it's not quite as straightforward since blogs are made up of several different files and the coding is a bit more complex.
With a website, you can manage your entire design in a software program so editing the overall layout and design is a little easier than managing the layout of a blog.
Another difference between websites and blogs is how content is published. With blogs, the publishing functionality is built into the blogging platform so you do not need any additional tools to publish your site online.
For example, to publish your content from a WordPress blog, you would login to the WordPress admin panel and select "Publish".
To publish content to a website you need an FTP program or web software that has a built-in FTP program.
Note: FTP stands for file transfer protocol and it's just a simple program that moves your web pages from your computer to your website. FileZilla is a common FTP program and it's free.
Don't let the acronyms scare you. It's really not that difficult. In fact, many web hosts now have FTP programs bundled into your account so if you can publish your content right through their control panel area.
Should I Start With a Blog or a Website?
There's no right or wrong answer to this. Which one you start with depends on you. Due to the way people read blogs, it's best to create a blog if you have a lot of "newsy" and fresh information to write about on a topic, and you should be able to produce new content on a consistent basis.
Websites tend to have more evergreen information and there isn't as much pressure to keep writing new content all the time. The information on a website is more static and often contains reference information that people would want to bookmark and return from time to time.
Whatever you do, please start with one or the other. Don't try to create both because you'll be overwhelmed with trying to market them. Take one thing at a time.
Just remember, you can use WordPress to create a traditional website too as explained in the video above.
