Should You Blog or Build a Website?

Should you blog or build a website? Every now and then, people ask me that question. I ask them, "Are you interested in making money from the web?"

"Of course," they said, "that's why I asked."

"Then you should build websites," I said.

"But I know so many people are making big money from blogging," they protested.

Blogging is certainly taking the world by storm. Many a blogger have even created a lofty profile for themselves. I read in newspaper where people brag that they are a blogger. That the authorities want to curtail the activities of bloggers only make blogging more glamourous.

What's a blogger anyway? He's just someone who writes stuff and post it on the web. Yes, yes, there are quite a number of famous bloggers out there today, and many of you are just itching to be one of them. Oh, the glamour, you can certain do with a bit.

But I have to tell you this: If you want to start a real e-business on the web, blogging is NOT the right way - for most people anyway. Why do I say this? For plenty of reasons:

The disadvantages of blogging versus building websites:

There are a lot of website tools you won't get to use.

It's going to be very time consuming.

Your traffic will not last unless you keep blogging.

You won't make as much money (don't let the few successful bloggers fool you).

You will have a harder time finding people to read your blog than your web. Let me share with you something from my own experience. Fifteen years ago, when the idea of blogging was not yet born, I was a newspaper writer. I wrote for my country's biggest English newspaper (there were only two back then, so it's one or the other!) I love seeing my articles appearing in print. It gives me that "uplifting feeling" to know that everybody in the country is reading what I have written. That my thought mattered.

But the problem is, that feeling only lasts a few hours, from the time the newspaper hits the stand in the early morning, till the last copy was bought later that day. When tomorrow came, people are already using my painstakingly crafted article to wrap fish. If I want people to remember who I am, I have to keep writing.

After a while, I felt like I was dropping my articles into a bottomless pit. And the pit always required feeding. After a while, I decided that I do not want to spend the rest of my life feeding that bottomless pit, so I quit.

Now I see people blogging. It is exactly like what I have been doing fifteen years ago.

So why the big buzz about blogging?

It's easy to do. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can put up a blog nowadays. So much so that a lot of people think it's easy money. Someone should tell them it is not.

You can get a blog up fast. Like bean sprouts, many grows up and die quickly.

Blogs get indexed fast. Yes, they do.

Blogs are looking more and more like websites. Yes, and it takes a jeweler to know a jewel. For people who are sold on the idea that they have to create a blog to make money on the web, I ask, do you want to be like me, fifteen years ago? Once you wrote a blog, it is dated. Like my old articles, they are good only for wrapping fish. When people visit a blog, what do they read. More likely than now, only the latest posting. How many would dig deep to read the article written 6 months ago?

Now compare that with a theme-based content site. The documents I wrote a year or two ago are still being brought up by the search engines. People are reading them because their quality is timeless. That's what you want, and that's what the Site Built It tool teaches. The Search Engines come back to websites that provide enduring value. That's the type of value you get when you build a genuine website.

If you are keen to earn from the web, read this article:

Blog or Build?

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The Happy Jobless Guy's Way of Earning & Investing

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