6 of 23

Website

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

new information on the business website. The benefits of this type of website are that it's flexible if you want to add more pages, potential customers are familiar with the design, and only the pages that need to be updated are updated. The down side of this style of business website is that it can be awkward for customers to browse long product lists, and if it's not updated on a regular basis it appears old and stale to many potential customers.

Online catalog website

If your business is entirely online and you sell products online as well, you will need an online catalog website. Essentially eBay.com is an auction website, but it is also a really big online catalog. These types of websites have some of the features of the standard multi-page business website, but they also feature eCommerce features that let you browse products, add them to your virtual shopping cart, and buy them all through the company website. The benefit of these types of websites are that they are the heart and soul of your business if you sell online, and are a great place to invest a lot of money to get great results. The downside is you need to invest a lot of money to get great results - if you try to get by with a cut rate solution, it will look just like what it is to customers.

The business blog website

A business blog website relies heavily on frequent updates to draw the attention of potential and past customers. Some examples of these businesses are musical artists, actors, authors, restaurants, newspapers, and TV stations. The RSS feed mentioned earlier plays a bit part here, but when people sign up for a blog they expect to get updates once a day or so. These blogs are generally concerning business related issues such as the trend of the industry, common pitfalls of competitor products, possibly even a little development discussion about some of the hurdles that have been overcome in the technology lately (keeping intellectual property in mind to limit the company secrets that are blogged). All of this insight and information keeps customers glued to your business website (in theory) and spending less time on your competitor's website. In reality, if you blog every day you quickly run out of quality subjects to write about. This is less true for larger companies. When you do run out of quality topics, you are faced with the choice of either backing up a bit and blogging less frequently, or blog about any old thing at all. Either choice has its downside from a customer point of view, so it's best to start slow and build up if you need to. Otherwise your business blog will turn into a personal-style blog where you report what your dog ate for breakfast. Another downside is that you need someone or people who can write well, and keep the customers engaged. If your blogs read like a grocery list, nobody will give them the time of day. But if your blogs read like a good novel that grabs you and involves you in the story, people will be anxiously awaiting your next installment.

So while the blanket answer is that traditional websites are better for business than blogs, there are some cases when blogs work better for some businesses such as entertainment and news. As with any aspect of business the best advice is to research your needs, and match them to the proper website for your business.

Learn more about this author, David B Hitchcock.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about What type of Internet portal is best for promoting your work: A website or a blog??
We want to hear your view. Write now!