What is the difference between a WordPress blog vs website? The simple truth is a WordPress blog is in a WordPress website and a WordPress website has a WordPress blog in the options.
Measuring the difference between a WordPress blog vs website can be a lot like defining the length of a rope. It depends on who is asking and who is telling. It might not be the answer you wanted when you started searching for blog vs. website difference, but often the simple answer is the best.
WordPress Blog or Website?
I started my blog in 2006 on WordPress. The joy of creating words drove me to start, and the ease of sharing led me to WordPress. Over the years, I learned to design extra pages, add sign-ups, and personalize my site using the ever-growing body of plugins and widgets.
Several years back, I attended a writing event, and one speaker turned his nose up when I talked about my blog on WordPress.
“You need to build a website,” he sneered.
Of course, he didn’t explain how to build a website, or where to build a website, or even what he considered a website. All he knew was he didn’t like me working on a WordPress blog.
I left him to talk with other attendees and went off to a corner to try to determine what, in his mind, made a blog vs. website different. He was a publishing professional, so I wanted to listen to what he had to say. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he didn’t understand the genuine power of WordPress and the creative genius flowing through the community.
It wasn’t necessary to hire someone or some company to build something unique to me because the community that built WordPress from the beginning had already coded the tools that made my unique possible. What started as a blog platform many years back had grown into the possibilities I needed for growing my focus and driving my purpose to where I determined it should go.
The Power of WordPress Blogs and Websites: You’re in Control
What is the difference between a blog and a website? Let’s dive in.
WordPress is powerful. When you tap into the creative brilliance of the community, then you can use that power to create your world: blog, website, or a blend of both. It’s up to you to take it to where you want to go. And where you want to go is only determined by the limits you put on your journey.
There are still those that try to weigh the WordPress blog vs website. They say the platform is for blogs, and you need a platform for websites. They say you have to have something shinier or flashier or just something made “by a professional.” They say a lot, and most of the time, they have little understanding of what they are saying.
When you learn more about the WordPress blog vs. website, you are prepared to block out the noises they use to keep you distracted from reaching your success.
The Beginning of the WordPress Blog: A Quick History
Long ago, in a land far, far away, the people lost what they found precious. They had found a home for their words on a platform that vanished into the nether regions of the World Wide Web.
Nothing drives the creative spirit quite as much as having something you love using taken from you without explanation.
The loss ignited the ingenuity of necessity. A group of determined heroes worked together to rescue the words and to give back to the people what they wanted and needed – a place to call home.
With the wave of a wand and more than a few nights of coding, these heroes created a land where others could create.
Community grew community, and they all lived happily ever after.
Okay, it wasn’t that long ago, and it happened on the internet, and whether they lived happily ever after is still up for debate.
Back in 2003, a blogging platform people love vanished from the internet. WordPress was developed to remedy the loss. The community worked together to make the platform better. When other blogging platforms were isolating users, WordPress embraced and engaged them to build a better platform.
Then came the WordPress Foundation, which “is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software,” according to WordPress Foundation – Supporting the WordPress community since 2010.
Today, you can use the same WordPress to write a journal you share with nobody, create a multi-level website, or build your world domination empire – or anything anywhere in between.
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
If you’re new to WordPress, you might also be trying to understand how WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org. We know the difference between the two WordPress platforms may be confusing, so we’ll unpack all the differences for you.
When it comes to WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org:
- WordPress.com is an all-encompassing platform for building your own website. The major benefits of WordPress.com are that it’s 100% free and external hosting (or even an external domain name) aren’t needed. All that’s required of you is to head to WordPress.com, sign up for your free account, and start building a professional-looking blog or website immediately.
- Conversely, WordPress.org is better described as open-source software that’s used as the operating system for blogs and websites. The software is also completely free, but it’s relatively useless unless you pay for a hosting account that the software will ride on.
WordPress Blog Definition
Interesting fact: Blog is a truncated version (which is a fancy way of saying shortened or squished together) of Web-log (and now that I know that, I want to start my posts with “Kathryn’s Log – date.” VLOG is another truncated version of video-log.
What is a blog? “That thing on the internet that we call by any other name will still smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare
Always remember what Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “If you read it on the internet, it has to be true.” Of course, in the case of defining a blog, both Lincoln and Shakespeare were right.
All of these situations have something in common: A blog is regularly updated with fresh content.
- A blog is an online page that is regularly updated and often follows an informal style. Here, it is you talking to whoever may read what you write.
- A blog is an online journal often made available for public consumption. Here, it is you typing your journal instead of keeping it in a book by your bed.
- A blog is a page on a website. Most times, it is one of many pages on a website.
- A blog (according to Webster Online) contains personal reflections and comments.
WordPress Website Definition
When defining a WordPress website, we need to go back to the rope scenario. If you are going to tie down furniture to your truck before hauling it from point A to point B, it’s important to know how long the rope is that your friend is offering you. Will it be long enough to get everything secure? Now, if you are going to repel down the side of a cliff, it is ESSENTIAL that you know how long the rope is. Your life depends on whether or not the rope will end before the cliff ends.
A WordPress website can be a simple page where you announce your event or a complex system of pages where you build your empire. Websites are individual and unique to each user and situation, just like the rope.
- A website is simply a location on the World Wide Web.
- A website is the interlinked pages that create a mission and vision for people, businesses, or organizations.
- A website is the online storefront for your entrepreneurial endeavors.
- A website is a series of coding commands that define the images you see.
A WordPress website is the things you see when you visit a particular domain or website address. When it comes to comparing a WordPress blog vs website, the simple truth is your blog is on your website, and your WordPress website comes with a blog.
Tip: A post loads into the blog portion of a WordPress website. A page is fixed and designed to be evergreen.
Wrapping Up: Blog vs. Website Difference
You define your home. Call it a WordPress blog or call it a WordPress website, the difference truly remains in the name. Today, a website often gets updated regularly with posts and a blog has multiple pages.
Just getting started with WordPress? Download the free ebook: Getting Started with WordPress.
Keep reading the article at WordPress News and Updates from iThemes – iThemes. The article was originally written by Kathryn Lang on 2021-03-26 16:09:47.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.