The old online copywriting chestnut about the difference between a blog and a website is worth revisiting.
A friend who’s been told to start blogging and online copywriting for her workplace recently asked me what exactly a blog was. When I gave her what I thought was an explanation she asked me what made it different from a website.
It got me thinking – first, that not everyone lives and breathes the internet – and then about how exactly we define these things. I came up with a few differentiators. See if you agree with me.
1. Blogs don’t tend to announce new products or services. Rather, they offer an opportunity to comment and expand on them, or talk about a company’s offering from a different angle.
2. Blog content needs to be constantly refreshed. Website content will have a much longer life. If your company is considering blogging you really do need to be posting at least once a week.
3. There’s always a personal element in a (good) blog, even in corporate blogs.
4. Interactivity in the form of a comments facility is a blog essential and it’s this more than anything that helps to build a relationship with your company.
5. Blogs have developed their own design conventions that tend to be simpler and more copy-heavy than those used on websites.
6. Companies tend to dial up the more informal elements of their tone of voice for blogging.
A friend who’s been told to start blogging and online copywriting for her workplace recently asked me what exactly a blog was. When I gave her what I thought was an explanation she asked me what made it different from a website.
It got me thinking – first, that not everyone lives and breathes the internet – and then about how exactly we define these things. I came up with a few differentiators. See if you agree with me.
1. Blogs don’t tend to announce new products or services. Rather, they offer an opportunity to comment and expand on them, or talk about a company’s offering from a different angle.
2. Blog content needs to be constantly refreshed. Website content will have a much longer life. If your company is considering blogging you really do need to be posting at least once a week.
3. There’s always a personal element in a (good) blog, even in corporate blogs.
4. Interactivity in the form of a comments facility is a blog essential and it’s this more than anything that helps to build a relationship with your company.
5. Blogs have developed their own design conventions that tend to be simpler and more copy-heavy than those used on websites.
6. Companies tend to dial up the more informal elements of their tone of voice for blogging.
