Do We Need A Web Site, if We Have A Blog?

I don't know. But I have been giving it lots of thought.

Some of you know that a recent case study about this blog showed that my business has grown by 40 percent this past 12 months as a result of this blog. On the other hand, my web site drives a far smaller percentage of business to me. So I ask, do I need both. Can a blog be both a web site for my business and a place for anyone who wants to read about and/or discuss marketing, sales and communications?

What are the pros and cons? Will many or at least some businesses never find me if I only have a blog? Can I create a marketing strategy to ensure they will? After all, I have a marketing strategies in place now for both the web site and the blog, and get lots of visitors to both. (But more business from this place.)

This is a question for which the answer is relevant to most of us small and mid-sized businesses. It affects budgets, marketing, and strategic planning. It also affects and entire industry who focuses on building and servicing web sites. For us, the answer affects revenues and our bottom lines. For them, it might affect their entire career.

So is there an answer or several answers to the question: Do We Need A Web Site, if We Have A Blog?

Here are a few pros and cons that strike me as obvious:

Pros

• A decrease in costs to host and to market two sites.
• Greater content efficiencies,
• Consolidation of information for clients, potential clients and all readers.

Cons

• The unfamiliarity of blogs for most business people, and since I run a marketing and a communications firm, my site(s) result in my brand image. How will driving everyone to my blog affect that image? (Currently, my blog is not listed on my printed collateral. My marketing strategies for the web site and the blog are separate and strategically distinct.)

Jump in folks. We could be on the leading edge of something evolutionary and big.