Blogs and Forums
The most popular non-commercial use sites are blogs.
A blog can be either an independent unit or part of one of the commercial sites.
A blog as part of a corporate website acts as a source of useful information for visitors and does not imply the creation of a community.
An independent blog, on the contrary, forms an audience around its topic. Commenting on articles is encouraged, unlike some corporate blogs.
Blogs are:
– personal or corporate
– thematic or “all about everything”
– informational
– regional
Accordingly, their functions may be different.
For instance:
Reporting
Training
Journalism
Formation of expertise, personal brand or the brand as a whole.
The unification of congenial people into a comfortable community.
A similar type of site is forums. But they have a narrower focus. They are created rather for communication and discussion of pressing topics.
Forums can be narrowly focused. For example, “About fishing” or “DIY repair.”
As well as a general focus, where the forum has many different topics that are not related to each other. For example, it can be a regional or city forum. And it can be discussed there as the improvement of a separate courtyard, and the upbringing of children.
The main functions are the exchange of information and opinions.
Unlike a personal blog, a forum can only form the expertise of a specific person within the framework of one platform where communication takes place.
Information sites or newsletters
They can be loosely called non-commercial. They do not sell anything directly. They do not advertise their services, they do not promote the brand.
An exception is the sites of top magazines, such as for example Cosmopolitan. Although, they can most likely be attributed to portals or websites of online publications.
So … Profit, information sites bring considerably. They usually earn on advertising.
Newsletters are:
General subjects
Narrow topics
Federal
Regional
Urban
The function of newsletters is to publish the latest news.
A distinctive feature is the constant updating and filling of the site with interesting content.
The goals are to attract an audience.
You should not forget that quite often one site can be a symbiosis of several types. For example, promos and landing pages. Business website and portfolio. Shop and blog.
But a professional will definitely figure out what is right for your purposes, after reading your technical requirements, having studied the brief, and talking with you personally.
That is why one of the first questions in our brief is: “Why do you need a website”.
That’s all I wanted to say. Hope this article was useful for you.