Blogs vs. Content-Sites

Now, I build content sites, and I still make more and more in my free time. To my definition, a content site is more or less like what James Martell does. I would research for keywords, define my topics, list the content I want on my site, and then start writing (or get somebody else to write for me).

Done with that, then it's about building the site, putting web pages together, and getting a domain name and web hosting.

After that, you go around looking for link partners.

I suppose most people understand what a blog is. But just in case for some newbie readers, I'll try to explain what it is. A blog is a site that contains articles after articles are written one after the other. The content is not being written all in one go upfront. But it is instead being updated along the way.

A blog lists the articles chronologically, being the latest, the first. MoneyClicking.net is a blog. A system or a script typically supports a blog. You can use Blogger.com (remote hosted), WordPress (PHP script), Movable Type (Perl script), etc.

Anyway, back to the topic. I was on the phone with my friend; we concluded it's better to have a blog because it's easier to get traffic.

Why? Well, some mechanics of a blog and the culture of blogging make it much more manageable.

For one thing - it's easier to get incoming links. Let me tell you how.

Reason #1: Blog Ping

First of all, there's this thing called - PING. With a blog ping, whenever you write a new article in your blog, you can set addresses to a few ping sites to tell them that you just updated your blog. You'll get a link to your site when you do that. Ping sites are like Technorati.com and BlogRolling.com. News sites like MSN News and Yahoo News also have ping addresses.

Maybe you won't be listed very long on that page because many other blogs are also pinging to those sites. But more or less, it'll help. I've gone through my web statistics, and traffic comes from where I pinged.

Reason #2: Trackback

Secondly, there's also TRACKBACK. Now, I was with a friend explaining how trackbacks worked last week. Now I'll tell you. With blogs, for every article that you write, there will be a unique URL for it. And for each piece, there's also a unique trackback URL. Whenever you are at another person's blog, look for the trackback URL, and you may want to copy it.

Now here's how you use a trackback URL. Let's say you are at somebody else's blog. And he just wrote something about cat grooming. And somehow, you feel that you have something to say about what he wrote - and you know, what you want to say will be very long, which may not be suitable for a comment. So you write your message on your blog, lower the interface, enter the other guy's trackback URL, and then hit the Submit button.

Now, that new article will appear on your blog. And because you put in a trackback URL, a part of your article will also appear in the other guy's report as a comment. And that comment links directly back to your writing. So that's how trackbacks work.

Reason #3: Blog Comments

My third point on why the blog is better than the content-site - is Blog Comments. This is where you can go around other blog sites and write some comments on articles. And you even leave a link back to your site. But here's the thing, make sure that your comments are genuine because now, too many people are spamming blog comments to get a link back.

Reason #4: Bloggers' Linking Habit

OK, here's some more. This is more a blogging culture thing - bloggers like to link to each other. If your blog is interesting, it's easy to get other bloggers to link back to you. Whether you ask for it on your website, or sometimes they give you a link back. I've got this many times, and most of the time, they link back to write to a specific message. And sometimes, they list blog sites that they like on their website.

Reason #5: Faster SE Indexing

This is getting quite long already. But I am not done. You may not realize this when it comes to getting traffic, but it's easier to get indexed in the search engines with a blog. I don't know why - perhaps it's because incoming links are more natural, and you don't go around asking for them. And when the incoming links are more realistic, I think search engines will prefer it much more.

I have experienced where new content on my blog was indexed in under seven days.

Reason #6: Repeat Visitors

After you get traffic from search engines, ping sites, and other blogs, you'll later realize that 80-90% of your visitors are repeat visitors. It's familiar with a blog. So the point is with this one - it's easier to retain visitors with a blog.

You get massive traffic from multiple sources - the ones you already have to keep. This differs from content sites, where you rely so much on search engine traffic.

Blogging Seems Much More Fun...

In my experience, starting from scratch, the content site may or may not reach a mark of 1000 visitors per day in six months. And it takes serious hours writing content and building incoming links. After six months, I have multiple sites consistently doing 100-200 visitors per day. But with a blog, it's not unusual if a blog reaches 3000 visitors per day, provided you give good content.

But I suppose it all boils down to which you are comfortable with.

Realizing this, I may be planning differently in the future - but I am not sure yet. From the looks of it, blogging seems much more fun. You write about what you like and your network with other bloggers. And the writing part becomes much easier with scripts like WordPress and Movable Type. Not much designing, no uploading files, less link building, etc ...

With building content sites, you still have to build the website again, upload them up to your web hosting, build incoming links, etc ...

This is my opinion. And you may not think the same way I do, based on your personal experience and knowledge. I respect that.