Blog vs. Website | Difference between a Blog and a Website

If you are a newbie in this internet world and thinking of starting your blog or website. But confused about whether to start a blog or a website, this article will help you. On a daily basis, millions of people search for various things on the Internet and often treat blogs and websites as similar. Technically, the two acts as websites and share various similarities. However, there are some minor differences that everyone should know.

This article will explain different aspects of both blog and website and how a blog is different from a website.

What is a Blog?

A blog or Weblog can be said as an informational website or a part of a big website, which publishes content on a particular topic on the internet. It is usually run by an individual or small group of people, who have a common interest and knowledge on something, such as a blog can be made for some technology, fashion, lifestyle, etc.

Each content of a blog is known as a post or a blog post. A typical blog post contains text, pictures, animated GIFs, audio, video, etc. It shows the posts in chronological order or in reverse order; hence the newer posts appear first to the user at the top of the webpage. Each blog post is updated regularly, and either new blog posts are added, or old ones are updated; hence user gets the relevant and trending information.

Mostly the blog posts contain the comments section at the bottom, which enables the readers to leave the public comments as their views on that post, and some users also give a solution for a problem or discuss with other users. These comments provide a great contribution to the popularity of a blog.

A blog is written in an informal or conversational style, so users can interact and understand the content easily. A blog can be accessed by its link or unique URL similar to a webpage.

History of blog

Currently, more than 600 million blogs are available on the Internet worldwide. But there is a great history behind the popularity of the blog, which is briefly described in the below points:

• The first blog "net" was created by Justin Hall in January 1994.
• The term weblog was first coined on December 17, 1997, by Jorn Barger, and later it was named Blog by Peter Merholz in the year 1999.
• In the early days of blogging, most people used the blog as their personal diary and shared their thoughts, details, and photos about their lives. Later, people started using their personal blogs.
• In the year 1999, Blogger(Later acquired by Google) launched as a platform for writing blogs.
• In the year 2003, WordPress released its first version of the blogging platform, and currently, it is the most popular blogging platform for beginners as well as professionals.

How to start a blog?

One can easily start a blog using different blogging platforms, such as WordPress, Wix, etc. Most of these platforms provide their own themes and templates as per different scenarios; out of them, you can choose the templates which best fit your goal or requirement.

You just need to create an account and start editing or creating your posts on these platforms. For this, it is not required to have much technical knowledge.

Purpose of Starting a Blog

Below are some reasons to start a blog

• Business
  As we know, a blog can be a part of a website, which is dedicated to a business. So, most of the business websites provide a separate link as a Blog to provide additional information that needs some extra attention, such as details about the product, related tutorial of that service or product, how to use, or anything which needs to be updated on a regular basis can be put into blog section.
• SEO
  Since blogs are updated regularly, an SEO blog can be very useful for the users to provide the latest updates about the new techniques to rank their websites or blogs. Some popular SEO-related blogs are MOZ blog, Search Engine Journal, Neil Patel's blog, and many more. These blogs help the users to stay updated with the latest information about SEO.
• News and Information
  To provide news and information about various trending topics, a blog can be the best platform. With a news-related blog, one can grow the audience's reach, and the newer user would start getting engaged with the blog. Some popular news feed blogs are HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Business Insider, etc.
• Connect with visitors
  Blogging is one of the best ways to connect with more visitors in less time than other ways. Each blog is dedicated to a specific topic, and hence if a user reads and finds the information useful, they may share it with other users also using social networking sites. They can also share their views in the comment section.
• Entertainment Purposes
  Anyone can start a blog for entertainment purposes; as most users search for the entertainment-related topic, it can be news about celebrities, jokes, dance tutorials, movie reviews, and many more. Blogs can be used efficiently for this purpose and can provide great benefits with fewer efforts.
• Sharing Skills and knowledge
  Some people start blogs to share their personal thoughts or hobbies. Such as some may have an interest in writing articles about technical as well as non-technical stuff, which can be shared with the help of a blog. It can also help to share skills of painting, photography, or traveling, etc.

What is a Website?

A website is a collection of multiple web pages that are linked together with hyperlinks. A website has a unique domain name and can be accessed by entering that domain name in the URL. It is published on a web server, so each user can access it globally using a web browser such as Chrome, internet explorer, etc.

A website can be accessed globally, or there can also be some private websites that are accessible within a private network only, such as the internal website of a company that can be accessed by its employees only.

Most of the websites are typically dedicated to a specific topic, such as education, news, entertainment, or social networking. The content of the website can include text, images, audio, videos, or any kind of information.

Usually, the website information is static in nature, which means the pages and information available on the website are not updated frequently. However, information is updated as per the requirement or when new information is available by the administration of the website. It can have various web pages, and the central page of each website is the Homepage. The homepage contains approximately complete information about that site in the form of links, and each link can be viewed after clicking on it. It is more for browsing other pages rather than just posts.

Websites are usually developed as per the business requirement or to run a business. These are designed in much professional way but mostly focus on one-way communication. A typical website could be anything ranging from a single page to several web pages.

Nowadays, each business, whether it's small or big, needs a website, which helps the user to know about the business and also to provide services and products to the customers.

History of Website

Websites have existed on the Internet for over 25 years. Whatever information is available on the internet, we see it with the help of websites, whether it's YouTube, Google, Facebook, or Twitter. But before reaching this stage, the website and WWW have covered a long journey. Some of the milestones are given below:

• In the year 1991, Tim Berners-Lee published the first-ever website, which can be accessed by the URL http://info.cern.ch/. The site was about the WWW project, details about the project, and how to use it.
• In the year 1993, a team at the University of Illinois released the first web browser to the general public, Mosaic.
• Later various popular websites were launched, such as Yahoo in the year1994, Amazon in 1995, Google in 1998, etc.

This development of new websites with new technologies is evolving day by day, which is making our lives easier.

How to start a Website

Creating a website was a big deal in past years, but nowadays, it is also much simple to create a website. There are various website-building tools that help you to create your own website, such as GoDaddy, WordPress, Shopify, etc. However, if you want to create it and design it in your own way, then you should have great knowledge of Web development technologies.

Purpose of starting Website

Starting a website is much needed when you start a business to reach out to more customers easily. However, there can be various other reasons to start a website that are quite similar to a blog, but the impact of a website and blog is different. Some common reasons to start a website are given below:

• Business: As discussed earlier, creating a website for a business is very helpful to each business, whether it's a small start-up or a big brand. Every business needs a great website. In this way, one can enhance his business more rapidly and get great benefits from it. A business website can be used to provide all the information of the products and services of that business in a more interactive and efficient way and make it reachable to more audiences with less time.
• Digital Marketing:
  Websites are one of the most important sources of digital marketing. With the help of a website, you can make your product to be reachable to an unlimited number of customers worldwide. Also, it is the best way to make new customers with very fewer efforts, compared to conventional methods of marketing.
• Professional and Social Networking:
  There are lots of social networking and professional websites ranging from Facebook, Instagram, to LinkedIn, etc., are being used to connect people worldwide. Similar to such websites, one can also create a social networking and portfolio website to get a great career ahead.
• News and Information:
  Similar to blogs, as discussed above, websites can be also be created to provide content related to news and new information to the user. A news-related website will be known as a dynamic-websites, as it needs to be updated regularly for new updates. The various popular news channel is running their websites also, such as CNN, New York Time, Times of India, etc.
• Online Tutorials or Forum:
  If you have good skills and knowledge about technologies, such as Java, C, C++, or other subjective knowledge, then you can also create your tutorial websites or Forum websites to share your knowledge and experience with other users. Nowadays, most people prefer to learn online only, so if you provide a great article, it will provide benefits to you as well as users.
• Entertainment
  A website can be created for entertainment purposes, such as to provide comedy videos, Music, Movies, etc. There are various entertainment websites available on the internet, such as Netflix, Spotify, etc.

Difference table between Blog and Website

Website or Blog- Which one to choose?

In the above section, we have explained all the important details about Blogs and websites, along with their differences. But one question still may arise, which one is better, and which one you should choose between Blog and website. So, it is explained as below:

Decide your Goal or intention: Before starting a blog or website, you should be clear about your intentions or goal that why you want to start it. If you want to showcase your skill or hobby or for fun, then go for the blog. But if you want to establish a business, or want to establish yourself as an authority on a subject, then start a website. However, if you want to start a blog or website to make money, then you can either create a great blog or website.