Do you have a blog?

[Write My Site]

Hello,

I'm doing a brief survey on blogging habits of small businesses. If you have a couple of spare minutes, please could you complete this short questionnaire (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=eNhEQTXxuYXjEKN57U_2bGQg_3d_3d)?

I'd also invite anyone who feels like doing so to use this thread to discuss their views about blogging. Do you do it? Why? If not, why not?

Thanks in advance.

Emily

[dw040775]

I completed your form, I use blogging to drive targetted visitors to my site as well as using it as an SEO tool.

To give you an idea, I created 2 similar sites, 1 with blog 1 without, no duplicate content! Every Sunday, I post 5 posts to the WP blog and schedule them for the following week, 1 per day.

The site with no blog in May has had 734 visitors, while the site with the blog has had 1,398 visitors over the same period, who have been redirected from Google, when they searched for blogs in my niche. Not bad for site that is only 2 months old.

My increase in enquiries is fantastic and so is the increase in business.:D

[dots and spots Jeff]

Just filled in your survey.

I started the blog as a means to drive traffic to my main site. Having now been blogging for about 6 months, its great to have an online diary of the business and a record of how it has grown.

As a design led company, we are using the blog more as a tool to create brand awareness & lifestyle. Our blog continues to evolve and now each entry has far more pictures/photos and less text. Sometimes I can struggle to find an idea for a blog entry, but I'm always pleased with the results once I've potsed.

Jeff

[GRDCredit]

Just filled in your survey.

I started the blog as a means to drive traffic to my main site. Having now been blogging for about 6 months, its great to have an online diary of the business and a record of how it has grown.

As a design led company, we are using the blog more as a tool to create brand awareness & lifestyle. Our blog continues to evolve and now each entry has far more pictures/photos and less text. Sometimes I can struggle to find an idea for a blog entry, but I'm always pleased with the results once I've potsed.

Jeff

Where is your blog - cannot see a link off your website.

Gosh - I see we are nearly neighbours (give or take 10 miles) - I'm based in Paulton.

Geoff

[maxine]

Just participated in your survey. I have two

www.maxxyuk.wordpress.com (http://www.maxxyuk.wordpress.com)
www.floatltd.wordpress.com (http://www.floatltd.wordpress.com)

The main reason was to have something more interactive than a website but I am still trying to get to grips with the SEO, benefits, best way to manage them.

The float blog was set up purely because our new website didn't have the space for photo gallery and I have put these on the blog temporarily until I can integrate a photo gallery to our website which was a bit of bad planning on my part and I am really frustrated about that. Not sure what the purpose will be once I have moved the photos back to the main website

[voldemort]

Blog is a good way of keeping people's interests alive in your website. It also helps in knowing what people think of your business.
We have started a blog for our company Lending Stream and can be accessed at lendingstream.co.uk/blog .
So far, it has had a great going and its helping in SEO as well!!

[stallfinder]

Just completed the survey. I have a blog purely for my business to keep our users up to date with news and info about the site plus I do features on our stallholders and charities etc. It feeds into Twitter, Facebook and a few other sites each time I update it and brings quite a lot of traffic to the website.Gail.

[AboveParr]

Hi
Done your survey, I'm sure I don't update it as often as I should...

What I find interesting is that people find it even though there is no link from my homepage (in the process of a total re-vamp), so I guess google must like the content!

[Write My Site]

Thank you to everyone who's posted here and filled in the survey. Early results are looking rather interesting, and the extra comments you're posting on this thread are helping to inform the survey responses.

Based on the results so far, it looks as though most of you have set up your blogs fairly recently (within the last 6 months) and you're pretty good at updating them regularly, which is great news. Of course, the sample size of the survey is still quite small as it was only launched last night! Any further responses would therefore be most welcome :D

[Write My Site]

This is a great summary of how a blog can increase your website's traffic.

I created 2 similar sites, 1 with blog 1 without, no duplicate content! Every Sunday, I post 5 posts to the WP blog and schedule them for the following week, 1 per day.

The site with no blog in May has had 734 visitors, while the site with the blog has had 1,398 visitors over the same period, who have been redirected from Google, when they searched for blogs in my niche.

[Wavecrest Ltd]

Hi Emily - just completed your survey. I have two blogs (greedy I know).

One http://wavecrestlimited.choseit.com is to drive traffic to my web site and also keep my clients and readers (hopefully) informed about the sort of jobs we undertake.

The other one is more of a hobby - http://lights2flag.blogspot.com and is more for entertainment than anything else.

Best regards,
Glen

[dots and spots Jeff]

Where is your blog - cannot see a link off your website.

Gosh - I see we are nearly neighbours (give or take 10 miles) - I'm based in Paulton.

Geoff

Sorry Geoff

Here's a link to our blog:


http://dotsandspotsdesign.blogspot.com/

You're right - we are neighbours! Always good to know of (& support) fellow local business's!

Jeff

[Write My Site]

Perhaps you could use the Float blog to talk about construction industry news. Not necessarily the doom and gloom stuff about the recession - maybe more personal, local stories. Run some of the keywords through Google News, I bet there's loads of stuff out there.

Just participated in your survey. I have two

www.maxxyuk.wordpress.com (http://www.maxxyuk.wordpress.com)
www.floatltd.wordpress.com (http://www.floatltd.wordpress.com)

The main reason was to have something more interactive than a website but I am still trying to get to grips with the SEO, benefits, best way to manage them.

The float blog was set up purely because our new website didn't have the space for photo gallery and I have put these on the blog temporarily until I can integrate a photo gallery to our website which was a bit of bad planning on my part and I am really frustrated about that. Not sure what the purpose will be once I have moved the photos back to the main website

[Write My Site]

Bump .... Bump ...;)

[tcg]

I like to blog. That's not to say I am disciplined about it, perhaps writing 4 or 5 a month.

I blog to share, to connect and to test thoughts and ideas. My personal blog tends to be more professionally focused, even though it is separate from my professional blog. I also like to see where people have come from and what they are reading so keeping an eye on analytics is important.

I have won business from blogging, both personally, and my company. I do not think I would have won that business if I had a rigid approach and strategy as I write when I have something I want to say and I hope adds value.

I have noticed that people who follow a link to your blog on Twitter tend to leave feedback on twitter not on the blog site. I suppose we are all looking more towards real time conversations and people value that as much as creating a link back to their site?