Do you think that having a company blog is something you can put off until later when you have more time? Do you believe a blog has little effect on your sales conversions? Do you think a blog keeps visitors on your website longer? Do you believe having a company blog keeps people coming back to your website?
According to this study done by clicktracks.com, the answers in order from above are
1. No, you should not wait to start a company blog.
2. No, having a blog can have a major impact on your sales conversions.
3. Yes, vistors stay on your website longer.
4. Yes, a company blog keeps visitors coming back more often.
Any of those last three sound like a bad thing? As for number one, if you do not have time to blog, hire someone to do it for you. From the study;
LuckyOliver: To Blog or Not to Blog
Stock photography company LuckyOliver (www.luckyoliver.com) gives designers, small business owners, consultants and marketers an affordable resource for finding the perfect royalty-free image. With high-resolution images starting as low as $1, LuckyOliver offers a viable alternative to high priced stock photography and low-quality (or ‘copyright challenged’) free images.In this startup organization, there was certainly no shortage of things to do—only a shortage of time to do them. Founder and chief instigator Bryan Zmijewski* had a hunch that one of the first things they should do after the site went live was to create and maintain a LuckyOliver blog. But with so many tasks on everyone’s to do lists, should blog activities—adding posts, replying to comments and encouraging interaction—be something that was treated as a priority? Bryan turned to ClickTracks to see if a corporate blog would be a good use of the company’s time.
There is that old “I don’t have time to blog thing again”. But wait, there’s more;
Dozens of Blog Posts, Zero Comments
“When we first started the blog, I encouraged all of the LuckyOliver staff to post, at least once or more a week. And they did—but after two weeks of posting, I found myself relatively alone on the blog. When I asked folks why they weren’t posting, they told me that they had other things to do and didn’t think anyone was reading the blog anyway. I think that the initial lack of comments was discouraging to them, so I had to figure out if the blog really was valuable, even if no one was actively commenting.”
No comments? Oh my goodness! No one is reading my blog! Sound familiar? For every person who comments on your blog, you need to figure there could be as many as 100 people reading the blog. We use to call them lurkers on forums. They come in everyday to read. They do not like to comment. It does not make those visitors less valuable. It also does not mean that your company blog is not helping you from an SEO standpoint either. So do not quit blogging just because you “think” no one is reading your blog.
Other things the study found;
1. Blog Increases Average Time on Site by 60%
2. Blog Readers are 22% More Likely To Sign Up for an AccountA visitor who saw the blog was 22% more likely to sign up for a LuckyOliver account than one who hadn’t. Additionally, the average time on site and number of page views for those newly signed up blog viewers was double that of the average visitor.
I would say the benefits of having a company blog far outweigh the time and/or money spent to maintain it. What do you think?
