Laura’s Blog

John asks:

What are the pros and cons of integrating a blog into a website versus hosting your website and blog separately?

John,

You obviously recognize the value of having both a blog and a website, and I’m glad of that!

I’ve tried both methods you suggest:

• I’ve created a mega website/blog combo
• I’ve created a website, and then linked it to my blog hosted by an outside service (Blogger and Typepad are the two most widely used blog hosting services)

Here are a few pros and cons I’ve discovered:

Website + separately hosted blog

• Many years ago, when I was a newbie businesswoman, I spent a big chunk of change having a website professionally designed and developed. When it got hacked, I had to re-create every single page on the site (and there were a lot of pages). Thankfully, my blog was hosted at Typepad, where an additional 750 articles remained malware-free. Lesson learned: back up your website database and your blog content DAILY.

• Nearly all blogs incorporate the same basic design elements, and it’s a snap to customize blog templates to match the look and feel of your website.

• And with a service such as Blogger or Typepad, setup is easy, even for technophobes. If you’re a newbie blogger and need a quick, painless way to get started, an external blog service is a good choice.

• If you use an external hosting service, I recommend purchasing a URL (Web address) and masking the service’s domain name (which usually looks something like www.yoursitename.blogspot.com) so that it appears to visitors as www.yoursitename.com. It’s a quick and painless process that results in a more professional feel and allows you to brand your blog more effectively.

• One advantage to using a service such as Blogger and Typepad is that search engines index their posts almost as soon as they’re published. If you integrate a blog into your own site indexing may take longer, depending on the whether you optimize your site for search engines.

• I’ve heard rumors that blog hosting services sometimes go belly-up or randomly delete everyone’s blog posts, but no one I know has ever reported having this problem. A word to the wise: back up all your content regularly, just in case (I’m big on backing up files; I’ve made to many bloopers that have caused me to tear my hair out in chunks).

Website + integrated blog

In 2007, I became a WordPress.org convert. WordPress.org (not WordPress.com) is a self-hosted platform (in other words, you buy and use your own domain name). With WordPress, you have several options:

• Create a stand-alone website
• Integrate a blog into the site
• Create a stand-alone blog

I love the increased creative control I have over the site’s design and the convenience of managing all my content from one home base, as opposed to flipping between my website database and my blog service’s dashboard.

Is cost a factor?

It can be, depending on what combination of options you choose.

• Some people hire a graphic designer and developer to create a snazzy website, and then they use the free Blogger.com service for their blog.
• Others hire a designer/developer to create a custom site that incorporates everything.
• Still others do it themselves, customizing one of WordPress’s many themes (templates) to create a unique look for their website/blog combo.

The major costs you’ll incur for a website include:

• Domain name registration (around $15-20/year for a .COM at GoDaddy.com)
• Blog hosting service (free at Blogger and many other places)
• Website hosting (usually $10-20/month for hosting on a shared server)

WordPress sites can be slightly intimidating for beginning bloggers who look at the blank theme and wonder:

“How the heck do I customize this? If I tinker with it, am I gonna blow the whole thing up?”

The solution:

Spend a minimal amount of money to hire a professional to create a semi-custom WordPress.org site/blog for you. Once your site is designed, you can focus on creating content.

Free Website Page Planner

I have a free Website Page Planner that I think you’re going to love! Print it and use it to help you plan the visuals, headlines, text, and special features for every page of your website.

When creating a website, remember this rule of thumb:

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

You always want to plan the brand messaging and content (text, images, audio, video) BEFORE designing your site. Once the content for each page is in place, design your website so visitors can quickly and efficiently access and consume your content.

Grab your Website Page Planner now and get started!