One of the first questions I’m almost always asked is why I prefer blogs over old-style static (conventional) web sites? Potential clients especially want to know “What’s in it for me?”. To answer any of these questions, I think you really have to stand back and take a look at how the Internet has been changing over the years.

Initially, web sites were a venue where information was displayed. You’d get a web developer (or even a designer), to create the code for your site, the content would be included and the site launched. It was a static environment, meaning the content was not changing. From time to time, a site would be redesigned and relaunched. In essence, these types of static sites were an online brochure. We can call them “static information sites”. They were appealing for a few reasons, among them:

1. They were cheaper than print media.
2. A large audience was reached.
3. Customized branding on the Internet, helped with marketing initiatives.

These static informational sites were coded in a way where the code and the content were combined. This made it more difficult to exchange data. To illustrate this, and how the webscape has changed, please see the video below:

As is evident in the video, things have changed quite a bit from the days of conventional (static) web sites. One almost profound issue was the separation of design and content. With dynamic web sites (where content is regularly added or changed), the content is commonly stored in a database. The coding of the site defines the structure and adds esthetic elements to each document. Then content is added to the document as it is requested from the database. This very much defines the functions of a blog – Sure a blog is still a web site, but it is dynamic! Dynamic web sites, such as blogs, appear to have greater flexibility and usability over the conventionally designed static web site, among them:

• Blog owners do not have to wait for someone to make content changes, they can do it themselves.
• Blog platforms (such as Wordpress) have built in tools that are able to promote themselves.
• The big search engines find and return results for blog driven sites faster.
• Blog driven sites can be easily updated by the owner from any location that has an Internet connection – You can do it anywhere.
• Active blog driven sites tend to rank higher in search engine results (staleness scores, etc.).
• Dynamic sites (blogs) generally have easily installed plug ins (for end users / blog owners) that facilitate the sharing of content in online social media.
• Blogs are inherently better suited to facilitating a two-way communication between site visitors and content providers.
• Blogs are often more cost effective to have customized graphic branding and are certainly more cost effective to operate. Arguably the ROI may also be better than with conventional sites.
• Blogs can display dynamic content along with static pages that never change.

Side note: A better phrasing for blog could possibly be “a dynamic interactive web site”.

As may be evident, we could go on listing more points, however one issue is that many small business owners, are not Internet savvy and are only aware of the conventional web site style. They have no concept of how dynamic sites (such as blog) are more search engine and social media friendly, cheaper to operate and can provide a better return on investment.

Do I think conventional web sites are dead? I’m not too sure about that. A lot depends on the consumer – that is the web site owner. Those that have no concept of blogs or other types of dynamic sites are probably going to stay with the familiar conventional web site. I think this is a trend that will change, as those who grew up only knowing dynamic web site become the majority.

From my personal experience, many people who are not web savvy, stumble when they hear the word “blog”, it’s almost as if they think it’s something that is so different as to become difficult? Perhaps, but it’s the idea that they have to update content that may not appeal. The crucial issue here (I think) is that people need to become more informed, taking the time to understand how a dynamic site can help them spring ahead of their competition.

As we know, blogs are a great example of dynamic sites and in a prior post (Why Every Business Can Benefit From a Blog) we found that:

• 66% of businesses believe that blogs are becoming more influential as an information source.
• 58% of blog readers, read them to find news and information they can’t find elsewhere.
• 54% of blog visitors formulate their opinions about products and companies from blogs.

The above are growing trends, so it would seem that perhaps conventional web sites, while not dead, are on their way out.

Finally, why do I think conventional web sites are falling by the wayside? Some reasons include:

• Dynamic sites like blogs are content driven, the Internet is content driven. They are both web 2.0 and there’s already a move on to web 3.0
• Business owners I’m sure, prefer cost effective solutions that can provide faster results (such as search engine response, etc).
• The newer generations of consumer and business owner are more familiar with dynamic web sites.
• Because of the two-way communication in a dynamic site (such as blogging), business owners are going to learn a lot more about their clients and potential clients.
• Dynamic sites are simpler to integrate and more appealing (because of the communication) to social media sites and promotion.

What’s your opinion? What would you add in this post? Feel free to comment below.