Blogs vs. Theme-Based Content Sites

Ken's Blog

Site Build It! (SBI!) owners build Theme-Based Content Sites. They build traffic right into their sites from DAY 1 by following the Content Traffic PREsell Monetize process. They build valuable sites that are searched-and-found by prospective new customers... with the number of visitors steadily climbing as their sites gain in relevance and reputation at the Search Engines.

Let's compare that with blogging...

Blogging is merely another way to build a Web site. Its content tends to be temporal or time-sensitive (ex., news-oriented or "the latest" or "the thought of the day"). And that is blogging's first major drawback.

Blogging is heavily covered by the media because they "get" the concept. They themselves create time-sensitive info every day. The great-untold story of blogging, however, is how 99+% of blogs lie dormant. Dead. And THAT failure rate is the second very big drawback.

As Chris Anderson, executive editor of WIRED magazine and one of the most prominent bloggers, said (in Blogging Heroes, a book published by Wiley in late 2007)...

A blog is this beast - a monkey on your back. It wants to be fed every day, but we all have jobs and it's hard to do.

Most people soon burn out from that "pressure to blog" and drop out, which is the third big problem with blogging.

That is why blogging is for a very small percent of the population -- writers with the time, inclination and skill-set to "develop a following." A Theme-Based Content Site that springs from personal knowledge and passion, on the other hand, is something that anyone can do at his or her own pace.

And that brings me to compare blogs and Theme-Based Content Sites...

1) Nature of Content Blogs are hard to read "retrospectively" since the posts are created and stored temporarily. Even when archived by category, the articles are dated and not organized into nice, coherent subjects since they are a bunch of "thoughts of the day." (There are exceptions, talented writers like Steve Pavlina who create quality, meaty articles, organized by categories, essentially "using" blog software to build a high-quality Theme-Based Content Site. More on this in the P.S.)

Theme-Based Content Sites have a stronger, more evergreen, momentum-building approach. Humans respond to relevant quality content in so many more ways than just giving a link back to you (unasked). And Google measures those hundreds of off-page criteria, rewarding your ranking accordingly.

2) Navigation and Organization Generally, blogs have no immediately logical organization of material by tiers, sub-tiers, etc. If they do, the material is still not compiled into cohesive articles, but rather into short thoughts of the day.

Theme-Based Content Sites are organized more logically. Pages are updated, not re-issued. These sites are easy for humans to read/explore and the engines to spider, two key elements for building traffic momentum.

3) Limited "Natural" Markets Subject matter is important, too. Outside of the Internet marketing field, where information changes super-fast and where there are many strong voices, and outside of news-oriented sites, there are just not that many themes that are as well suited to blogging as they are to creating solid Theme-Based Content Sites.

4) Search Engine Degradation Blogs are temporal, and all Search Engines treat them as such (traffic degrades with inactivity more quickly). Google recently devalued much of the low-quality, "unspoken link-exchanging" that goes on in "the blogosphere."

5) Monetization What about the monetization potential of a blog? Even as a way for infopreneurs to earn income, most people simply won't push traffic numbers to make enough money. There are simply more ways to monetize a Theme-Based Content Site. Diversification of income and steady growth, even when not creating new content for months, provides a sky's-the-limit potential.

My Bottom-Line Thoughts About Blogging?

I'm not slamming blogging, merely saying that it's vastly over-rated. It is most appropriate for the exceptional infopreneur -- people who have the time, inclination, subject matter and high originality to pull it off. It's a far more Darwinian, all-or-nothing world. I'm a big fan of Steve Pavlina, Scott Adams, and Seth Godin, but these three are all exceptional writers with creative and original ideas.

I don't consider blogging as "Web 2.0"... it's merely another way to build Web sites, with pages that tend to be shorter, time-sensitive "thoughts" and that allow visitors to comment on your content. It feels like broadcasting to me. It is not nearly "as Web 2.0" as SBI!'s Content 2.0, for example, where your visitors create genuine, high-quality content for you, for free.

For most small business people (i.e., you!), the best route is to build a Theme-Based Content Site that delivers sought-after information about a specific niche. Each topic is well-covered, based upon your own experience, rather than broken into pieces over time in a blog. This C T P M approach will serve your visitors' purposes better, will build more long-term targeted traffic, and will monetize for you far better than a blog.

All the best,

P.S. A final thought on this... Both WordPress and TypePad have "softened" their software to enable people to create more un-blog-like sites. When you do that, of course, you basically end up with just another site-builder, a nice, usable Content Management System. The vast majority of users, one way or another, are still back at Square One -- they lack the knowledge and tools to build a highly trafficked site.

"Getting a site (or blog) up" has never been easier. But succeeding has never been harder. Despite all the "blog-buzz," the failure rate is nearly 100% -- only the incredibly talented make any significant dollars through blogging. And only SBI! provides all the tools, and the process to enable everyone to succeed.