There are a lot of options available these days if you want your own website.  But a blog can also be just as fun, not to mention free in some cases.  So which should you choose?

A blog is pretty easy to design and use, and if you just want a  sort of online journal or a way to keep friends updated on the happenings in your life, a blog is probably the easiest way to go about this.  Some blog platforms — Blogger and WordPress are the most commonly known ones — offer free blogs hosted on their site, which means that you get a subdomain of theirs (i.e., myblog.blogspot.com).

You can also have a blog but with your own FTP service.  This means that  although you use the blog platform for designing and updating your blog, it is uploaded via FTP to a hosting account that you have with a different company.

Finally, there is the traditional website option, which doesn’t look anything like a blog.  These sites are often much more difficult to design and update, which is why many FTP and SFTP hosting providers also offer software and other tools to help you build a professional-looking website.  The other alternative is, after all, hiring an expensive graphic designer to put together your website for you!

These are the basic differences between blogs and websites.  In general, blogs have a more casual feel to them, and are best left to amateurs and casual users.  Websites, on the other hand, have a more professional feel and make a much better representation for a business — with the exception of the business blog, which is usually part of or linked to the business’s website, and maintained to help promote a business.

Technorati Tags: blog platforms, FTP service, SFTP hosting