It is common practice for web developers to suggest to clients that they keep a business blog, and the reasons seem to make sense: blogs drive traffic. The visitors who are driven to your site by blog content, however, may not be ideal visitors. A better approach is to keep a section of your site devoted to well organized articles, where visitors can find what they want at a glance, and older content has as much priority as newer content. An article library immediately communicates expertise, and also a commitment to providing visitors with valuable, free content. A blog simply demonstrates an ability to generate new content.
Why developers recommend blogs
The reasons web developers recommend blogs are sound, but you need to view that advice in light of your own needs and business goals. Frequently updated content results in better SEO and additional visits. A blog tends to be, or at least should be, engaging. Visitors are more likely to find your blog content when they are not specifically searching for your business. The result can be traffic to your site, which is all well and good if traffic is your ultimate goal. For most businesses, however, web traffic isn’t the ultimate goal.
Blog readers may not be your ideal visitor
If you are a brick and mortar business like a car dealership, a florist, a legal office, or any other kind of business that earns its money offline, you need to think in terms of converting web visitors to flesh and blood clients. Start by thinking of the kind of visitor who is most likely to become a client. These are not visitors who have discovered you because of your blog content. They are visitors who likely searched for local businesses of a certain type, and landed on your site because of locally relevant search results. Now what? Now, you need to demonstrate to them that you are capable of providing the service or the goods they are looking for.
Will your blog do that? Possibly. But the likelihood of the visitor digging through your archive is not high. And your “Recent posts” may not give a good enough indication of your expertise. Worse, blog readers understand fully that blog content is time sensitive, and in the time sensitive world, older content has less value than newer content. That’s not what you want. Your expertise grows with time, it does not lose value.
Demonstrate expertise with articles instead
Expertise can be demonstrated a number of ways, but the simplest, most straightforward, and easiest to understand, is a library of undated articles that “give away” valuable knowledge for free: how-to’s, position papers, reviews, tutorials, and other written pieces that give your visitors (potential customers) something of value.
A blog has its place
That’s not to say that you can’t keep both a blog and an article library. A blog can be a great way to announce new content. Write an article, put it in the library, then use a blog post to give a description and point to it. Use it only to announce that content, for “news” or other time sensitive material, and for smaller, conversational, lighter pieces that don’t warrant inclusion in an article library.
Do you need a blog? Talk it over with your web developer. Discuss your goals for the site and its visitors, and determine together whether or not a blog is the appropriate vehicle for communicating with your customers.
Further Reading
Nielsen, Jakob. Useit.com. “Write Articles, not Blog Postings“.
Weiss, Alan. Summitconsulting.com. “Maximizing the Effectiveness of your Website“.
