Blogs achieve higher rankings ... or do they?

By ampie_g
Blogs achieve higher rankings ... or do they?

 

One of the primary aims of an affiliate site is to attract visitors and build traffic. It goes without saying then that if you're more likely to be found by a search engine, then your site will be more successful. In fact, it's most likely the biggest issue facing site owners and quite possibly what keeps them up at night (hopefully in a good way!).

So the question has been asked – what achieves a higher ranking; a blog or a website? Before we discuss this question in more detail, let's just clarify a couple of things as some of you will no doubt be wagging your finger at the screen going 'tut tut Simon, they're one and the same thing'. And you would be right. A blog is basically a website, and a website can have a blog, so they're not mutually exclusive but for the purpose of this discussion we will use the following definitions (I'll try to add them to Wikipedia later :):

  • Blog – A site specifically setup as a blog for the purpose of blogging and build on a a well-known framework such as Wordpress or Blogger.
  • Website – A site designed and developed independently by a webmaster (amateur or professional).

Now right off the bat, if you want my opinion in a nutshell (sorry but you'll get it anyway) I believe that for the average person starting their own affiliate site and with a limited knowledge of HTML, that they are much better off with a Blog. Maybe you could illustrate it this way.

Imagine you've been entered in a race and the goal is a ten out of ten page ranking on Google. Now you have two options – build a car from scratch or buy one off the shelf. Now if your mechanical skills are anything like mine (and you ignore those banging sounds under the hood too) then your chances of winning the race are much higher if you buy a ready-made car.

In a similar way, blogs have many ready-made features that give you a leg-up in winning the page ranking race. They often have built-in features that optimise them for search engines, such as accurate page titles and full search indexing. They are designed to be super nice whenever the Google bots drop in for a visit, showing them around your site and pointing out all the cool features so the bots can go off and tell all their friends.

In addition, blogs let you focus on one of the most important aspects and that is having quality content. That is what the average web user is searching for and that's what search engine bots are trained to sniff out. They will walk straight past all the flashing bells and whistles and blah blah of most corporate sites to track down that precious 100 year old ginger beer recipe you got from your grandmother and just posted on your site.

Now of course if you have a website, you could be getting a little twitchy and feel like I'm ignoring all the benefits of having your own website. And you're right there are many – the freedom of building something from the ground up, not being constrained by blog templates or a host that doesn't let you install that latest version of PHP or AJAX.

But my reasons for leaning towards the blog movement is simple - I know that those who can build those powerful super cars out of lawnmower parts are the minority, and that most of us entering the affiliate business just don't have the time or budget to build one. For the most part we're better off setting out in our trusty Toyota Corollas than wrestling with an F1 Ferrari, instead spending our precious time focusing on the most important part – good quality content!

Credit: anniemole

13 Comments
Peter Mcgrath 15 years ago
yes i agree with that article blogs are easier for me to create than a website
and the simplest blog in my humble opinion is google's blogger even if most people go for word press it does requires more technical knowledge but like everything that's just my humble view
Simon Slade 15 years ago
Hi Guys,

Just a quick update to clear up a few things that some members have PM'd me about.

The new updated version of AffiloBlueprint that we are aiming to release in a few months time will include using a blog as an alternative to using xSite pro. We have done this to give people that struggle to get to grips with html coding of a website a different (and hopefully more easy) solution. All current AffiloBlueprint members will gain access to the new version free of charge.

We will be able to release more details once the development is nearing completion.

Thanks
Simon
Ken Morgan 15 years ago
I agree wordpress blogs are easier to set up but my experience is that when you run into problems they require more technical knowledge than a html website. With my knowledge of Wordpress I couldn't get the update to one of their releases to work for me and ended up starting from scratch again. And Wordpress and the plugins are continually changing.

I think using Xsitepro is easier in some ways and when it gets updated it's seamless.
Troy Todd 15 years ago
Yeah, Its pretty good to change something like a word or sentance or even upload some other stuff etc and hit the publish button and its dont in 30 secs.
vegasplayer 15 years ago
Blogs are the wrong choice for many reasons including SEO. Key Evoy has some great insight on this discussion: http://blogorbuild.sitesell.com/

And why would anyone need to know HTML with site-builders like Xsitepro? And Mac users have it even better with great apps like Rapid Weaver & Freeway.

Why put yourself in a position where you have to keep feeding a blog?
Morgan McArthur 15 years ago
What I love about blogs ieL wordpress is its CMS (Custom Management System), makes things so much simple to update and add content compared to a real site, now the BIG question is can it out rank a normal static site with the same content? well that's what I am trying to find out.

The interesting thing is when ever you do a search on something, most of the top ten pages are static sites, but have seen the blog sites creeping into, perhaps its just time for Google to start tanking mainly blogs sites as top ten, lets see
Paul Hoff 15 years ago
I agree with HappyGuy, Blogger is very easy, i haven't tried Wordpress, but i've heard it's a little more technical and a bit more work so i set mine up on Blogger.

I've also launched (couple of weeks back) my own website, fidddled about with Kompozer for a while, but eventually bought a website package from GoDaddy and i've found it pretty simple, a bit like a blog you just pick your template and off you go, obviously more work in setting up the pages, but it's really all done for you, point, click an publish, any problems or queries i've had have been quickly sorted by the excellent support staff.

Now the struggle is driving traffic, i originally optimised the pages for PPC, having done the PPCClassroom course (where i found Affilorama) but due to poor weather and illness affecting my offline businesses, i now no longer can afford to set up the campaigns, D'oh!

I've heard of Xsitepro but never really checked it out, maybe i should?

Regards, paul
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Kim 13 years ago
Wow, that's crazy man. They should really try to do something to fix that.
Potrebbe essere bene che cosa mettere nel mio piccolo weblog personale, se inserisco un riferimento alla www.affilorama.com?
Cecille Loorluis 12 years ago
Hi Tirgu,



Do you mean you would like to refer to the above post in your own blog?



Thanks,

Cecille
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