In a recent discussion on LinkedIn, someone asked if the future of websites were blogs. Meaning, is it still worth it for companies to develop “traditional” sites built from scratch when setting up a blog is easier then ever. When I say a blog, I mean a site built on an existing platform such as Posterous or WordPress that was originally meant to support regular content updates. Although, a blogging platform can be built from scratch, the real appeal comes from the fact that infrastructures are available for free or cheap. A “traditional” site is what we’ve seen so far – sites developed by teams of designers and developers that can take time and money.
I believe a strong web site is the foundation of any web presence. For example, having a strong presence on Facebook, but a dated website with little to no users experience gives your customers a inconsistent experience and can turn them off. As well, according to Jeremiah Owyang, one of the trends of 2011, will be to offer web users a social experience directly on the corporate website as opposed to only on other channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
What are the advantages of building your corporate presence on a blog platform such as WordPress?
Social beings. By definition, blogs are social entities and websites need to be social in nature. It’s not enough for all online customer interaction to happen on Facebook or Twitter. If you manage to build strong relationships with customers and potential customers on social presences and your main web presence does not offer what they look for, all your efforts will be in vain as users will turn away. Blogging platforms have social components integrated in them so you can engage with your customers via comments. There are Facebook plugins and and easy ways to embed video. As well, all the share functions to Twitter, Facebook and every social network you can think of are easily available.
Easy. Blog platforms can be hosted by a provider or can be under your control. They are easy to install, whether you want to host it or not. One advantage of a traditional site is that you own all the content and could regulate everything via FTP, by hosting your own WordPress blog you can achieve the same thing. Even though owning your content is important, you really don’t have to. Platforms such as Posterous enable you to create different sections and pages as needed, so you can easily integrate a “Work with me” or “Contact me” type of page. So even if you don’t want to deal with FTP and file updates, you can create a professional looking site in just minutes.
Even if you’re not planning on using your site as a blog with regular updates, you can use the frame work to create a static site. For example, a blog platform with 4 pages, each with content that stands on its own, looks like a traditional site, but with easy access for simple updates. Look at Chris Brogan’s Human Business Works site – it’s a WordPress platform, but the pages are static.
Customization. Blog platforms are easy to implement. You need little to no programming experience. If you do end up using developers to help you out, their work doesn’t have to be intensive. As well, platforms such as WordPress have large communities that develop for them so support is cheap and new plugins are constantly being developed. All that community support means you can customize them quite a bit. No two blogs have to look the same.
Blog platforms are easy to set-up and easy to use, whether you want to host the files or not. They are social by default and more social content can be integrated, which is something that will be increasingly important. Finally, they can be set-up to answer your needs – do you need to maintain two blogs? Do you need to have static content only? Are your pages going to need quick updates and any time?
My next post will look at some advantages of sites built from scratch.
What do you think the advantages of using a blog platform are?
(Photo credit: Search Engine People Blog)
