why blog-based websites are “it”
About two years ago I decided to start a blog. It was called Utobia and it was home to rambleings and creative findings. It’s where creativity came out to play. I started it on Blogger as it was free at the time. I then changed over to WordPress and launched Utobia2.0. Same blog, different look and back end mechanics. Shortly after that, I launched tobysturgill.com, a sad little portfolio website that housed my previous work and contact information.
I was never truly happy with my professional site. It was static, uninteresting and boring. Not a true reflection of me at all. Plus, I had no way of tracking traffic or seeing who was coming and going. Meanwhile, Utobia2.0 kept getting all the attention and momentum. In just a few short months, I had already gotten 1,000+ hits. Then it hit me… why not blend the two into one website. Far greater reach with the same amount of frequency. Imagine what that kind of exposure can do for business!
Enter the new tobysturgill.com. Staying with WordPress as the back end, I snagged up a template from a third party designer, made some minor tweaks, called tech support three times in two hours (because I barely knew what I was doing) and by the end of the weekend I had this site up and running. Now my business is exposed to the daily traffic of my blog.
Professionally, there’s nothing wrong with using a blog-based platform for a website. It’s easy to update and virtually free. Stuffy, static web pages are a thing of the past. Sites that haven’t been updated for a few months run the risk of being out of date and irrelevant. If there’s something I’ve written that they like, then they post it on THEIR blog or site with (hopefully) a link back to me. New people then come to see my site and learn that they can hire me. Plus, WordPress plugins make tracking and trafficing very easy.
It’s the same reason why Twitter is so important. Constant contact and communication. Micro-blogging, if you will.
I want to be an early adopter, but better yet, I want to be influencer. So that means not standing around and waiting for a majority to catch onto things. Is a blog-based website unconventional? Sure. Are a lot of people/businesses doing it? Not yet. Does that make it bad or any less professional? Absolutely not.
