Do you need a conventional website if you have a blog?

One of my readers asked the above question yesterday.

As long as someone as an effective Internet presence via a blog I don’t see the need for a conventional website.

An effective Internet presence requires two things. One, the ability to network with your prospective clients and the influencers of your prospective clients (bloggers & reporters) so that they will regularly cite you as an expert in your niche. This happens by entering into the ongoing discussion in your niche via use of your RSS newsreader and your blog. This networking will bring the lion’s share of your work, just like word of mouth does offline.

Two, high rankings on the search engines. That’s done via good blog site architecture, effective use of keywords, and effective blogging so as to draw incoming links with anchor text describing what you do.

For an expert who brands themselves via their intellectual capital (most good lawyers), search engines play a 25% role in importance, while networking via your blog and RSS reader play a 75% role in importance.

So long as the blog publisher is doing work in primarily one area, a blog alone, without a conventional website works well – it covers both of the above. Where a website is needed is if the blog publisher (lawyer or law firm) does different kinds of work, i.e., estate planning and family law. A blog covering both areas of law cannot be used to enter into a niche discussion and network on the net. The blog will then need to be on one topic and a website used to showcase what the lawyer or law firm does in these two areas.

Of course the blog needs to clearly set forth who the blogger is, what they do, and how to reach them by phone and email. An intake form is effective on the contact page as well. Links to those three pages should be featured prominently on the blog in a separate navigation schema than the blog topic categories.

There are lawyers using a blog only who get virtually all their work via blog. And those law practices vary from consumer practices to sophisticated business litigation practice.

I’m not sure what a website adds to a well designed blog. Skilled professionals, lawyers and others, use a blog only to get work and showcase themselves all the time.