Blogs vs Static Pages

I’m a big proponent of Wordpress. Not only is it extremely easy to use and set up, it is also very powerful and can be made to do pretty much anything.

No wonder that top blogs like TechCrunch and Mashable run on this software

At its very core, however, Wordpress is a blogging platform. But blogs, by virtue of their very nature, are designed for

readership. Most blog themespromote browsing and reading. They provide multiple escape routes, have a

lot of content and update regularly to keep visitors coming back. If you are trying to build up a loyal reader base, nothing can beat a blog.Take a look at the po pular blog, CopyBlogger.com:

This is a great blog design (built on the Thesis theme from DIYThemes.com), but look at the number of “escape” routes (marked by red arrows). That’s a lot of ways for a visitor to get distracted. No wonder this site isn’t monetized by AdSense.

As AdSense marketers, our goal is to get a visitor to click on an ad and leave the site as quickly as possible. We don’t want him lingering on, browsing through our content and eventually leaving the site. For this purpose, blogs, unfortunately, are not the ideal solution.

When it comes to AdSense, static pages convert much, much better than blogs. Sure, some marketers would tell you that it is not so, but if you take the same design, in the same niche, a static site would easily outperform a blog. This is the reason why all guru sales letters are long, static pages with minimum escape routes (just one link – the “add to cart” button).

Since I’m such a big fan of Wordpress, I like to use it to make static sites. You will learn more about this in the later sections, but I would just like to say upfront: static sites convert much better than blogs. So make sure that the next site you launch is static, not a blog (you can still use Wordpress, though).