If you want to start your own site to sell products you're probably wondering whether to create a website or a blog. Do you know the differences between or the pros and cons of a website vs. a blog? Read on to find out.

A website is a group of pages containing text, images, videos or any other media, which is accessed from the same domain name. A blog, on the other hand is a frequently updated journal, not necessarily on a single subject, in general not needing any computer or programing expertise.

So website vs. blog - what's good and what's not?

Ease of navigation - A website would normally contain an index or menu, repeated on every page, listing all the available pages. A blog, however, is usually navigated from one page to another or from links within posts to other related posts. Generally a blog will have a sidebar in which recent posts are listed as well as an archive where you can see the posts for any given month. A blog will also have categories, which differentiate between the types or topics of posts.

My opinion: A website, if it has been well-built, is easier to navigate.

Ease of updating. Appending a page to a website would commonly necessitate some knowledge of HTML (hypertext markup language) and the need for some sort of webcoding software. Blogs ordinarily have a content management system which pretty much does everything for you, apart from actually typing the posts. The software will organise everything for you and will automatically update your archive, etc.

My opinion: A blog is easier to update if you have no knowledge of HTML or how to build a website.

User-friendliness. Making a blog attention-getting and easy to use is fairly simple because there are a lot of templates readily available, plus plugins and widgets. In general they have an easy to use comment facility. However, because of that facility, blogs can be full of ridiculous or unsuitable content, rather than useful and informative items. A website can generally only be revised by its owner, so the browsing experience isn't interrupted by rubbish.

My opinion: A website offers a better browsing experience for someone seriously searching for data but a blog would be for those just after a bit of fun or wanting to communicate with friends.

To sum up, blogs are fun and easy to add to, but may not offer the facilities you need to upload the content you want. However, a website may suit you if you want to put up some serious one-time information which will not require updating on a regular basis.

For the best of all worlds, use both. You can put up your main content on a website and link it to your blog, where you can easily publish updates and keep in touch with your readers.