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Blog Vs. Web site - a point/counterpoint
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Blogging beats Web sites!
I vividly recall when Web sites started to come into vogue in the early 90’s. My firm had pioneered Web site testing, which today is more commonly referred to as “Web site usability studies”, thus proving that everything old is new again!
Back then, you needed to be well versed in HTML and coding to build and deploy a Web site. You also had limited choices on who could host your Web sitee since most firms did not have the bandwidth or server capacity to host their own Web sites.
To say that this process was cumbersome would be an understatement. Approximately three years ago things started to change. Many hosting and domain firms began offering you the capability of building your own Web site via templates. There are downsides to this, including; many of these tools are not Mac friendly, lots of Web sites started to look like numerous other websites, and there is limited functionality.
Fast forward to today. Building a Web site is not a simple process no matter whether you build it yourself, or hire an individual or a firm. Much thought has to be given to SEO (search engine optimization), as well as countless other things such as how often the site will be updated, who will do the updates, how will the site be promoted, etc.
If this seems trivial, trust me, its not. My own company has been through four different renditions of a Web site redesign in five years. By the time every version was completed, I was that much closer to losing my sanity! I came to quickly learn that working with most Web designers was like holding a live electrical wire; the best that you can hope for is not getting totally zapped!
So what are the alternatives? Some people, including my colleague and fellow Examiner, Becky Sheetz-Runkle, the author of the counterpoint of this examination, believe that a Web site is crucial to the success of a business. I respectfully disagree.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have not had a Web site, and would have strictly maintained a blog. The blog would of course have downloadable information (i.e., PDFs) about our company, as well as other relevant information, but, not the downside of building and maintaining a Web site.
The plusses are obvious. Valuable time and resources would be better spent on projects that actually generated revenue for the company, and by posting something worthwhile every day on the blog, your “site” would always be fresh and worth revisiting on a daily basis. Downside? Whatever you post has to be interesting to current and potential customers.
Once you get over the “everyone else has a Web site so I should too,” I see no worthwhile reason to be tied down by a Web site despite Becky’s very convincing and worthy arguments to the contrary.
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