G asked... "I am not sure what the advantages and disadvantages of blogs vs websites are and I am trying to make sure I start whichever, or a combination, is more appropriate."
Here are some things to consider with respect to setting up a collection of web sites:
- Blogs are able to generate traffic due to achieving higher rankings in search engines if they are updated in a timely manner. The level of traffic is not huge, but if your blog is interesting and contains quality content, it will develop a readership and gather blogroll links over time.
- Web sites may require more SEO (search engine optmization) effort, but if you an get a page to rank well, you can get a lot of free traffic.
- You cannot manage very many quality blogs. It takes a lot of time to write quality unique content. You may want to limit the number of blogs you have, but make them general in some way so that they can help promote your web sites.
- Web sites, once built, require almost no work to maintain on a short term basis. This is assuming that they generate search engine visits and then provide useful information and content to a visitor. You may or may not get many links - though you can work to trade or buy links as needed. In the long term you must of course keep improving your site in order to keep it up to date and competitive with other sites.
- Blogs can be quite popular and quite versatile without having to spend money on a domain or on web hosting. They are a good place to start experimenting. Web sites require the purchase of a domain name and additional technical knowledge in order to publish them.
I don't know if that fully answers your question, but please feel free to ask follow up questions.
