The 7 Assets Of A Blog And Why One Still Might Be Detrimental To Your Business

Blogs remain the current rage in the web industry. Every day businesses are advised to “start a blog” and every day I tend to disagree. Blogs have become the fashionable magic pill prescribed to most businesses as a quick fix, end-all solution to their problems. But blogs are far from a blanket solution or appropriate for every business. While they definitely have their strengths, those strengths do not help every business equally.

My advice always begins by pinpointing the result my client wants to achieve and then working backwards to map out a plan to get there. I advise you to do the same. “Start with the end in mind,” as Stephen Covey says.

It is important to first understand a blog’s strengths and weaknesses before you decide the extent of the role it will play in helping you realize your goals, if it plays one at all.

Assets of a Blog:

1. Blogs are free and can be configured quickly. Both of the top two blog providers, Blogger.com and WordPress.com are free and take seconds to set up.
2. Blogs give you the power to publish content directly to the Internet through a simple, easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS) and can establish you as an authority in the process.
3. Blogs get indexed by search engines quickly, meaning that the articles you wrote will usually be listed in Google and Yahoo within hours instead of days or weeks, but not necessarily in a position of prominence
4. Blogs by themselves receive traffic from people specifically searching blogs. There are groups, networks and search engines devoted solely to blogs.
5. Some blogs allow you to place Google AdSense and other advertisements on them so the potential to make money directly from your blog exists.
6. Having a blog that is separate from your website creates another entry point for people to find your website and be exposed to your business.
7. Blogs allow users to comment on the articles you’ve written, creating interaction that is stimulating to read, participate in and promotes return visits.

Blogs are great. If that list only encompassed all of their attributes I would be in favor of blogs across the board, but blogs also possess some definite drawbacks that have to be taken into consideration prior to incorporating one into your website and marketing strategy.

Drawbacks of a Blog:

1. Blogs are time-consuming and demanding.

Blogs are indexed by search engines faster than a standard website because search engines favor blogs. Google is able to recognize that the content is written on a blog and knows blogs are intended to be updated regularly. Search engines place a lot of weight on the relevance of content. Our world changes and develops rapidly and they reward sites that are current. While it is great that a blog receives priority, it also places a lot of demand on you and your staff to keep up.

For your blog to be its most effective you should be publishing content frequently and regularly. Once you begin to lag, you are creating an opening for another blog or website to take your place. In essence you become the editor of a magazine that is responsible for creating, developing and maintaining fresh content on a regular basis. By doing so, you are limiting your time from your business which is your main source of revenue.

2. Blogs are competitive.

You and I are not the first or the last to realize the power of a blog. Blogs give everyone an instant voice. The problem is now there are millions of people talking. As of right now, WordPress.com has 4.3 million blogs and it’s #2 to Blogger.com which has millions more of its own. How are you going to be heard? What is your company going to say differently? Unless your business deals with an extremely special niche market, you will be competing with all of the other blogs commercial or otherwise that deal with a similar theme.

Again you are at the mercy of search engines that face the daunting task of deciding which website, blog included, will be placed first and last. While blogs are favored, the quality of the content and frequency with it is updated is still a key deciding factor. You likely face stiff competition with all of the other websites and blogs that deal with your subject matter.

The way to separate yourself from your competition without shifting all of your time and attention away from your business is to be very specific in the articles you write. If you own a painting company, writing an article with tips on the best time of year to paint your house will pit you against thousands of others that have already covered that topic. Instead, you may have to write about the best time to paint a house in your city.

The problem with this is threefold:

• Unless your city is dramatically different from others, do you really have anything of value to say or are you writing that article just to fulfill your requirement of writing in your blog?
• Is that topic something of interest? If it’s not no one will be searching for it and it has not done anything for your business other than to take you away from it.
• Your time is best spent creating new customers and managing the existing ones. If you hire someone to write your blog for you, you have just created an additional expense that only makes sense if that money is not spent advertising directly.

3. Blogs are indirect

Traditional advertising, both in print and online is still an effective means to raise awareness about your company. A blog is an indirect, more passive means of doing the same thing, but often times the toll it can take on a business owner to achieve comparable results is greater than the cost of just buying advertising.

While a blog does create an additional entry point to your site, you are still playing the percentage game only now you’re adding another percentage. A fraction of the people that visit your blog will visit your site and a fraction of those people will purchase from you. You might be drawing more people to your site than you would have without a blog, but the new visitors might not be buying anything. Other visitors might be on your site to buy and click on your blog link and then get immersed in your gripping article about finding a painter in Pasadena and never actually call you. It could go either way. The opposite is also true.

The Internet has the power to bring the world to your site, but if your company is like most and has geographical limitations, your resources are better spent trying to attract the customers that you can serve. The scope of a blog might be larger than you need.

Is a blog right for your company?

A blog has definite value, but it is far from a blanket solution. I recommend consulting with a company that bases their advice on your goals and the budget, staff and time frame you are working with and can advise you about the best marketing strategy for your business.

If you have any questions or would like our advice, please feel free to email us.

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