Should every site be a blog?

Dana Blankenhorn argues that the home page of every corporate and political web site should be a blog.

What people most want in pages they bookmark is dynamic content. They want to know that each time they hit the page there will be something new to see.

Is this true? It depends on the goal of home page. If you want and expect people to spend time reading content on your home page, then putting articles (perhaps even blog articles) directly on the home page might make sense.

But, for most substantial corporate web sites, the home page has two goals: (1) Tell people what is available on the site. (2) Advertise new products.

The home page should provide navigation links into the rest of your content. Many people come to the site on a mission, looking for something specific. The site should make it easy for them to find what they want.

The home page is an opportunity for marketing. There's an advertising opportunity to introduce customers to new products and services. For new customers, all the products and services are new. For existing customers, only products they haven't used or seen before are new.

If the goals of the home page is are easy navigation and internal advertising, it's still possible for the home page to be dynamic. Personalization can emphasize the most useful navigation links and most relevant and interesting new products and services based on the individual interests of the customers. This is particular important on large corporate sites that easily become cluttered (e.g. Yahoo) if they try to provide links to everything.