Wordpress lets you do more that designate a page as a home page… you can create any number of normal pages that are not blog pages. Simply go into the Write tab, click Pages (you start by default on Posts) and create a new page.

You can create different templates for top level pages, category pages etc and assign the template to each page along with parenting (whether a page has a parent or not).

Alongside this you can create a normal blog page that acts just like a standalone blog site. I’ve created several sites like this and it leaves people with a very easy way to manage the more static content.

As for traffic differentials, yes, a blog will get traffic – but you have to look beyond the raw visitor numbers to issues of engagement and conversion. A blog page might bet 5x the traffic of a static web page… but if the reason is the variety of topics on the blog then some/many/most of those visitors aren’t qualified traffic – they’re not potential customers. One way to address this is simply to have a professional site where you blog about professional topics. The look and feel, branding and navigation should all tie into your services or product. Create another site to hold your personal blog. Crosslink if you want to – look at redmonk.com for an example of this.

It’s far more powerful, and there’s certainly no reason not to build a site on the stuff.

I agree with you about the future; I’m already advising some clients that calling their blog a “blog” might not be the best idea given all the expectations and perceptions that come with the term.

Michael Pollock programmed it into a new theme I’m about to launch on my Trout Underground fly fishing blog.

Mark: It seems to me that your blog would primarily be used to grow your e-mail list, not serve as your primary marketing pipeline (yet).

Though I haven’t wanted to get into the e-mail list game, many of the most successful “professional” blogs I visit clearly leverage the e-newsletter.

On the Internet, traffic is currency, and well-written, high-quality blogs deliver traffic. It’s that simple

It’s worked REALLY well for us, and continues to. And, I would still like to get the kind of traffic the blogs can help generate. I’ve seen the way Dawud Miracle has set up his website/blog:
http://www.dmiracle.com
And I think that’s a powerful way to go… and his site still looks a little cluttered and confusing to me- too many things going on.

If I can come up with an even cleaner design (which is a tall order- I love Dawud as a designer and usability person) I would be tempted to go in his direction.

In the meantime, I’m letting my static website still be the main thing, with the blog as a link. it will be interesting to track what happens.

One of the other things that’s challenging from the blog point of view is that there is no customization possible, and no list segmentation possible. If I want to make an offer to my list via RSS, everyone gets the same offer.

Right now I can offer my customers and clients the gift of not trying to sell them something they already bought, because my email lists are segmented. And so I can run a strong -push- campaign successfully without alienating my current customers.

Still wondering about it all… it will be interested to see it as it evolves.

Mark’s comment rings especially true for me. Referrals are a key source of traffic and new clients for us, and while some of that does go straight to articles on the blog, the bulk of it comes through the homepage and converts from there.

Like you said, every organization’s different.

Re: Your suggestion to use the blog sidebar to drive main site traffic or opt-in subscriptions – I’m not sure if WordPress does this, but apparently w/TypePad you can “feature” a post so that it’s sticky at the top of your blog (in the content column as opposed to the sidebar).

For someone getting a lot of traffic to their blog’s main page, this could be a good alternative (or complement) to using the sidebar, since the main column typically gets the lion’s share of screen space.