With few exceptions we tell our clients that they need both. But before I get into that, I would first like to dispel some misconceptions. Blogs are websites. With a decent designer and enough time spent on various add-on modules a Blog can be made to look like a traditional website. But a Blog’s purpose it to allow a non-technical user the ability to easily post their thoughts and ideas for the world to be able to see.

Most Blogs can be described in terms of things that used to be common but have mostly been replaced: Journals and/or Diaries. Journals and Diaries were used by people to record their thoughts and ideas. Personal Journals were traditionally used to record daily experiences and observations. Professional Journals, were geared toward a particular subject matter – i.e medical journal, law journal, and local journals or newspapers geared toward a specific region or location, etc.

Blogs are today’s Journals. They allow a site owner to post a comment (idea or thought) and allow others to view these posts and make comments of their own thereby expanding the communication thread. Most of the successful Blogs have a relatively narrowly defined focus reflecting the interests or knowledge levels of their authors. But the very nature of Blogs allows for expertise and incoherent ramblings to be intertwined at the whims of the Blog owner.

The favor or Blogs over websites was primarily the design of a few popular Blogs applications that allowed non-technical users the ability to post their thoughts using nothing but a tool similar to a stripped down word processor. While most websites required a much higher technical knowledge of things like HTML, Dream Weaver, Cascading Style Sheets, File Transport Protocol (FTP) and design because the typical website had no pre-defined form or constraints. The lack of form and constraints gave a web designer a blank canvas with which to create anything they could envision. The same lack of form and constraint made it very difficult for a typical site owner to manage and maintain their own website.

Over the years, companies like ours have worked hard to create applications that required no technical knowledge other than a basic understanding of typical word processor functions in order to manage and maintain their website: create new pages, add or change content, add images, audio and video files and even change the look of their websites by arranging basic building blocks.

Today, when you search blog vs website for which is best for a particular company or individual you will find lots of articles touting the ease of use of Blogs vs traditional websites. Most Blog proponents tout ease-of-use as the primary reason for using a Blog today. And though this can be true, it is not a universal truth. Products like our ProFusion brands provide the best of both worlds: A product a business owner can use simply by changing colors and uploading images or a designer can start with the blank canvas and create most any design and upon integration of that design to our ProFusion Ultra Internet Solutions, the site owner can easily manage and maintain the site with no technical knowledge.

What we have found is that a company that is serious about promoting its business needs both a website and a Blog. A Blog that is not updated is no better than a static (never changing) website. But a website that is dynamic (constantly changing) and a Blogger capable of writing interesting and valuable Blog content on a consistent basic can rise to the top of the search engines and provide real value to customers and prospects looking to buy or educate themselves about how to buy.

As a consumer of your company’s products or services, I do not want to wade through a seemingly un-organized series of ramblings to find out specific information about your products or services. I do want to quickly be able to determine if you can solve my immediate problems with your solutions. Once I can answer that question, then I want to know a bit more about your company, and how your clients feel about you. Depending on the product or services you are providing I may then want to read more about why I should do business with you. What value do you provide? What makes you better or more knowledgeable than your competitors?

An exceptionally well designed Blog may be able to provide a business with all of that information in a very short manner, but more often than not, a traditional website’s structure will provide all of the quick confirming information and the Blog will be like the icing on the cake. If you sell a technical product or provide services that, as a consumer, I may need but do not buy on a regular basis then I may need more information and hand holding before I am comfortable with knowing how to buy what you are selling. And to get a Blog application that was originally designed to present journal information easily, to now function as both a Blog and a traditional website, may not be so easy to manage and maintain when trying to be all things to today’s more sophisticated Internet users and what they have come to expect.

A combination of a easy to use and maintain website along with an easy to use and manage web log may in fact be the very best of both worlds when it comes to helping a consumer understand what you sell and why are the best choice and value.

So when it comes to a new website or a Blog, maybe the answer is not one or the other, but what is best for your customers? What will help you, as a business owner, best get your message across to your customers and prospects. What web strategy will help serve your customers best?

Just as you are unlikely to take the advice of a friend or neighbor when you have a serious tooth ache or you need medical attention, if you are serious about solving your web related business problems, you may want to discuss these issues with the professionals whose livelihood depends on providing the right solutions to their clients. Discuss your strategy with a professional web applications development company who can advise you on the merits of both a Blog and a dynamically generated web content using today’s web application tools.