The community of web entrepreneurs keeps growing. Beginners actively test different ways of making online money easily, but sooner or later most of them decide to build their own content-oriented resources.

Due to Google's search algorithm providing priority to original content and because of the severe online competition in every thematic niche imaginable, content-oriented sites have became one of the most trusted ways of establishing an online presence with long-term monetizing potential.

Many webmasters who decide to start a content site choose to build it using a blogging platform. There are plenty of blog platforms that are free and easy to set up and operate. A wide variety of custom templates allow users to create a professional-looking web site in less that an hour with no design or programming skills whatsoever. Once the blog is operational, it is very easy to update the content and to manage the comments. No HTML, no CSS, no PHP, no FTP, no SEO. It seems simple; however once you have selected the easy way you will have to pay for this convenience.


Problem # 1: The Vertical Information Structure

It is important to understand that the information structure of any blog is strictly vertical. Every piece of new content appears on top of the older layers and pushes these layers down. The visitors of a typical blog see the latest posts and rarely navigate through the site in order to find older posts.

In addition to that, every piece of information in a blog (such as posts and comments) is structured and indexed in accordance with the timeline. As I said, the newer pieces appear on top of the older ones and one can clearly identify when exactly these pieces were posted. This precise time reference significantly decreases the value of the older posts.

If you have old content that still has potential, you will not be able to bring back surfers' attention to it, unless you constantly quote yourself in your newer posts and create a confusing crosslink system.

The other side of the problem caused by the timeline order is the necessity to constantly provide fresh content. The blog cannot last long without new posts; it must be regularly and frequently updated. Maintaining frequency is time-consuming and very often we can see content for the sake of content, in other words “quantity instead of quality”. To keep the blog alive, a webmaster must maintain both the frequency of updates and the high quality of posts, which is nothing but the “work of Sisyphus” as it pushes the older content deeper and deeper “down to the past”. No mater how hard you try your blog will remain “an information iceberg”. Your surfers' attention will capture the top part, while the main information body is kept hidden.


Problem #2: Recognizable format

At some point blogging became so popular that it reminded me of an epidemy. The online space is full of blogs; no matter what you are searching for, you keep seeing them.

The reason that stands behind creation of most blogs is monetizing traffic using ads. Content is only used as means to attract traffic, to achieve search engine ranking or (at least) not to get banned. This is the reason why most blogs are lacking relevancy and informative value.

There was a period of time when blogs used to get high page rank by default, and corporate blogging was actively employed as a tool that helped promoting corporate web sites. All the above significantly contributed to a rather negative image of today's blogs that are often filled with questionable quality posts, links to other blogs and numerous ads.

The blogging platform is more than overused. The term “Blog” has lost its initial purpose of a diary and has become an easy-to-set-up web-content container with built in SEO features. As a result, an average surfer who comes across a new blog will most likely ignore it just because it is impossible to dedicate so much attention to the information source that is abstract, inadequate or similar to thousands of other sources. Given all these points and unless you aim to build a genuine blog I would like to suggest two solutions:


Solution #1: Horizontal Information Structure

• Clearly emphasize a category-based navigation, which will provide more visible access to a wider variety of your content.


• Display your content in a different way. Use the principle of information priority rather then time-line reference.


• Make your most valuable information either constantly appearing on one of the main pages of your site or easily accessible from them.

• Make sure your web site does not look like a blog: Avoid typical two and three columns layouts.


• Add features to your web site that go beyond ordinary blogging activity. Allow your visitors to submit texts, participate in polls, vote, upload images, etc.


• Avoid blogging terminology: blog, RSS feed, tag, post, etc

• You can make everything manually, create your own web site and assign the desired functionality, navigation and information structure.


• You can use an open source CMS platform and customize it the way you find fit. Visit www.opensourcecms.com and you will find a number of interesting CMS solutions.