One of the most common questions I get asked is, what’s the difference between a blog vs a website? People often confuse the two and so, in this post, I will explain in detail all about blogs.

What Is a Blog?

The word ‘blog’ comes from the word ‘weblog’ and weblog refers to a written diary online. So in essence, at least using the original meaning, a blog is an online diary.

Just like an offline diary where you would write something every day, the idea with a blog is that you are adding regular content, and each individual piece of content is usually referred to as a ‘blog post’.

These days, blogs have evolved into something much more powerful, such that many people are making money and making a living online from blogging (I will explain a little later in this post all about how to make money blogging).

So a blog can look quite similar to a website but a blog will, for the most part, have content being added to it often, so it is quite fluid and a blog evolves continuously like a living organism, you could say.

A key idea with blogs is also interactivity! With a blog, you will probably want to have comments enabled at the bottom of each post to get your readers to engage with you.

Likewise, making use of social sharing icons is important as you try to create social interactivity around your content.

A blog also tends to be written, owned, and designed by 1 person or 2 people (although it doesn’t have to be). In most cases though, you will find blogs run by one individual.

Classic examples of people who blog are those who:

• own a small micro-business (such as a yoga teacher)
• travel and blog to make money as they travel
• just like to share their thoughts and ideas online
• foodies who write about food and as a result make a living from blogging
• and many other examples exist.

Because a blog is often just 1 or 2 people, it tends to be less formal than a website, because it is more personal and more flexible.

In conclusion, for now, a blog tends to:

• Be less strict i.e. less formal in nature than a website
• Be regularly added to with new content often
• Have a lot of interactivity and social engagement connected to it

What Is a Website?

A website, on the other hand, does not tend to focus on continuous content that is regularly written.

The general purpose of a standard website most often is as a shop window for a business, or to serve some other purpose whereby static non-changeable pages can be used.

A classic website will, for example, have pages that rarely change such as:

• Home page
• About Us
• Service pages
• Contact Us
• Testimonials
• and maybe pages such as events pages and so on

The focus for the most part, will be pages that rarely change on a website.

Can a Website Have a Blog on It?

I am sure you were already about to ask if a website can have a blog, as you might well have already seen lots of websites that happen to have a menu item at the top saying ‘blog’?

i-escape.com, for example, (see the image below) is a travel hideaways website and is mostly static pages. The site does though have an item on the main menu that says ‘Blog’.

This leads us to the concept of ‘blogging’ and ‘content marketing’ and why some websites include a blog section.

Click ‘Blog’ on iescape and it will take you to what is a content section on their site with articles that are published weekly. On iscape though, the comments feature is closed and there are no social media buttons with the posts.

Using Blogging for Content Marketing and SEO (Blog and Website Combined)

Many online companies and businesses have begun to realize that what is known as ‘Content Marketing’ is a very useful way to attract traffic to their website.

To explain, if a website wants to show in search results for a term, then they need to have instances of that term on their site.

So, if iescape.com wants to show in search results for the term ‘holidays in Barcelona‘, then they would need to have a page on their site about ‘holidays in Barcelona’ to begin to have a chance to rank for that term.

(There is much more to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as you will see in our SEO posts buy hopefully you get the idea).

In other words, why would Google show your site in the search results for ‘holidays in Barcelona’ if there is nothing on your travel website that ever mentions Barcelona?

You sell holidays but you have never mentioned Barcelona.

Imagine, on the other hand, that you have a long and very informative and great blog post on the benefits of taking a holiday in Barcelona.

Now you begin to have a chance to be matched up by a search engine for searches on holidays in Barcelona.

Key Point: To make it clear, if you are a business with a website (almost all static pages) + if you want to get much more traffic to your website, add a blog section into your site + add a regular (say weekly) high-quality and well-written posts on a topic directly related to your business is a great idea.

Why Do Many Blogs Look Like Websites?

That’s another good question and one that I am often asked and it is true that sometimes it is not easy to know if we should call something a blog or website because these days many bloggers make their blogs look quite dynamic.

Let me explain – a weblog, originally, would have looked like just a bunch of posts and in chronological order just like an online diary and with little else on the blog.

On the sidebar of the blog, you would have also seen the dates and number of posts like this image below:

If you look at some University websites, they have a blog section that looks and acts like the old weblog style. Take a look, for example at the University of Chicago’s blog section here.

If you look at some of the modern-day bloggers though, you could be excused for at first calling it a website BUT remember that the key is that blogs:

• have regular content added
• tend to be run by 1 or 2 people only
• normally have comments open and engage with social media.

Some great examples of bloggers who have made their blogs look kind of like websites are:

• The Wayfinding Expert
• Valeria: The World Dance Heritage blogger
• The ‘Nitty Traveller‘ a blog by Lenore
• The Over 50s Blogger

The situation is that you can design a blog however you want these days because there are many beautifully designed templates you can use and you can design your menus and layout however you want on your blog.

One trick is is to subdivide your blog posts into categories and then each category can be an item on the main menu.

So, if you blog about dogs, you can group posts into these categories:

• Dog food
• Dog treats
• Doggie events and shows
• Dog photos
• About me

And then use those titles on your main menu along with a ‘Contact’ option.

WordPress Blog vs WordPress Website

Another thing that many people find confusing regards blogs vs websites is the fact that you can design blogs on WordPress and you can design a website on WordPress.

These Universities, for example, use WordPress for their website:

• University of Maine
• Queens College Melbourne
• Berkeley blog also uses WordPress

WordPress is in fact a Content Management System (CMS) that was originally intended for blogging.

A CMS, by the way, pretty much means that it is a system that manages your content. So it is basically a platform that YOU can use yourself for building your site.

WordPress is a blogging platform but many businesses use blogging software actually to make a website and universities do this a lot. Over 35% of the websites worldwide, in fact, use WordPress. So WordPress can be used both for websites or as a blog.

How to Launch and Start a WordPress Blog for Beginner Bloggers

9 FAQs on Blogging vs Websites

1. Blog or website, which is better?

Whether or not a blog or website is better is one for debate, but let me give you what I think is a good answer 🙂

• If you are an individual or just two people and you are looking to build a business online and you are planning to write regular content and engage users, then you are in essence going to be a blogger.
• If you just need a shop window and do not have time for writing content all the time and just need a few static pages, for example, then you need a basic website.
• If you are a medium to large-sized business and need a number of static pages but are happy to also have a content area on your site to drive traffic to your site, then you will have a website with a blog section.

The key is not to really worry if you have a website or blog or a combination of the two.

The key for you is simply to decide what you want to achieve from having a web presence and then to decide the best way to achieve that.

And remember that writing regularly high-quality content that you also get shared on social media can be a great online marketing and SEO strategy.

2. Blog vs website for making money

You can certainly make money from both a blog and a website, as you can see from the recent post we did on some of the most successful bloggers who make 6 figure income from blogging including CreateandGo.

There is no exact answer to if a blog or website is better for making money as it depends on the size of your company and the purpose.

Individual bloggers have been known to make $1 million-plus dollars a year (not that it is easy but it’s possible).

With your own business site let’s say with an online shop on it, there is no minimum or maximum to what you can make. It really depends on your niche and how many people you are.

I refer you to the answer about the difference between a blog vs website.

If you plan to work hard to get into search results, then SEO and content marketing will be important and so blogging will be an essential part of your business for making money online.

3. Blog v Vlog. What is the Difference?

A ‘Vlog’ is a video blog. So, instead of writing text and adding images to a blog post, you record a video diary or video content.

So, in essence, it is when you regularly post videos onto your site or channel (you can choose to have a YouTube Channel, our channel we are starting to develop).

Some examples of popular and successful Vloggers are:

• Casey Neistat – the most successful vlogger in the world and has made millions from his videos.
• Nine Brass Monkeys – Benjamin Cook is a British vlogger who likes to interview others.
• Shirley B. Eniang – a beauty and fashion vlogger who gets huge viewing figures too.

Anyone can vlog including you. Just sign-up with Youtube and start making videos.

In summary, a blog is written content and a vlog is video content. Both though are about regular content.

4. Self-hosting your blog vs Hosting on Wix or Blogger

If you want to own the content on your blog, then the only option is to self-host your blog. If you use a free host such as Wix, they own the content you write.

You can see a detailed post here that we already did all about free hosting versus self-hosting (paid hosting).

Free vs Paid Web Hosting for Bloggers (Should I Use WordPress.com, Wix or WordPress.org)

5. Difference between blog and website PDF

Now, I have to be honest and tell you that I am not sure why people email me and ask this question, as a blog and PDF do not have any obvious relationship.

But I have been asked this a few times so I am including it here.

A PDF is a type of file and means ‘Portable Document Format‘ and has nothing to do with blogs per se.

You can save a Word Document, a web page, or even a blog post and many other types of files as a PDF. To save a web page as a PDF, you can choose Control+P (to print) and then choose ‘Save as PDF’ in the ‘Destination’ box.

6. What is the difference between a blog vs article vs web page?

A Blog is a set of posts that you post regularly. An ‘article’ is generally the same as a ‘blog post’ meaning that it is one piece of content added to a blog.

A web page, on the other hand, can be a static page detailing something about your business.

You could perhaps, in theory, say that a blog post is a web page but with a web page, it is normally a stand-alone page as opposed to being tagged in a category (if you use WordPress) and added to.

7. The difference between a blog vs podcast?

Whereas a blog is regular written content and a vlog is regular video content, a podcast is regular audio content i.e. voice content.

Just like a blog or vlog, the podcaster will normally create a number of pieces of content at regular intervals such as weekly.

8. How to start or create a blog

We have a page already written on how to start and create a blog of your own and here is a link to read about all you need to know to get started:

How to Launch and Start a WordPress Blog for Beginner Bloggers

9. Blog vs website for affiliate marketing

If your intention is to make money online through affiliate marketing income, then I recommend starting a blog. Why?

By writing regular content such as reviews of products that you can make a commission on (always be very careful, to be honest in your reviews though) you can build up some great content that is dynamic and shareable through social media.

Write a review on a product you love, add your affiliate link/s (and affiliate disclaimer), and share it on your social media such as on your Facebook Business Page, a Pinterest account, Instagram, or Twitter.