What is the difference between a website and a blog?

First, the similarities: websites and blogs both occupy a presence on the internet, use an URL or web address, need a host server to keep them online, contain information such as text content, pictures, links and keywords, and both benefit from search engine optimisation and can be tracked through Google Analytics.

But – here are some vital differences:

Blogs are designed to be self-editable. This means they are very easy to access (through a username and password) from any computer in the world, and require no web designer to make changes for you.

They are designed to be updated frequently and regularly – in fact, their programming attracts search engine spiders who are looking for new content all the time. This is very good for web optimisation which puts blogs higher up the search engines.

Unlike websites, blogs only update new material each time it is posted. Websites supersede old content, whereas blogs store previous entries as in a news-roll, each post dated accordingly and assigned it’s own URL for access at a later date.

Blogs are designed to encourage interactive communication between author and readers. Those who comment link back to their own sites, and this content is considered as new material by the internet spiders too. This is not available in websites, except through sign up forms, and then contributors cannot view afterwards what they have written.

Blogs are created to help businesses to spread their expertise, explain what their business does in different ways, maintain a relationship with their visitors and customers, offer subscription services for regular contact, channel traffic back to relevant websites, and can be fed to other websites like social networking for a higher readership.

And another consideration to note: they are much cheaper to create and maintain!