Many companies have taken to marketing their business by blogging to help boost their visibility and revenue, but there appear to be mixed thoughts on if the marketing technique really works.
In a column for Business Management Daily, Bob Bly says that blogs are unlikely to have a positive return on investment for the businesses using them. He says that blogs are too much like diaries, with a "rambling, incoherent" nature and that things like white papers, e-zines and websites are better ways to share information.
"I have yet to find a single marketer who says that a business blog has gotten him a positive ROI, or return on investment … I’ve not seen a blog whose creator says that the time and effort spent on their blog has directly put money into their pockets," he writes.
But some believe that if blogs can’t translate into direct income, they do increase visibility and are a good way to draw traffic to a website. Paul Chaney, president of the International Blogging and New Media Association says blogs can help bring visitors to a site.
"The search engines, especially Google, love blogs," he told Bly. "You’d be amazed at how many of your posts will end up in the top ten returns. If search engine optimization is a concern to you, blogs are the best way I know to move up the ladder as well as increase your page rank."
Blogs do create original content for websites which can be beneficial for search engine optimization (SEO). At a conference earlier this year, SEO expert Bruce Clay agreed that using original content can boost a website’s traffic.
