Debbie LaChusa

I've been blogging for over two years. In January 2006, I decided that was the year I needed to join the blogosphere. It just so happened that very month I was at a networking meeting and the guest speaker was a blogging and podcasting expert.

I wanted to use blogging to develop a two-way conversation with my audience and grow my list. When I shared these two goals with the "blog expert" he assured me that would be no problem.

I immediately invested in his program, worked with his team to create this blog and spent the next 12 months becoming an avid blogger and podcaster.

The numbers don't lie.

As a seasoned marketer I have been trained to track all of my marketing activities to see what works and what doesn't. Common sense says do more of what's working and stop doing what isn't.

After spending countless hours posting to my blog at least three times per week and recording a weekly podcast show, my marketing results were pretty dismal.

While the blog was getting good traffic, it hadn't done much to grow my list and I was hard-pressed to find a ROI on all the time and energy I had invested into it.

While I had gotten very positive feedback on my podcasts, when push came to shove, the ROI just wasn't there for them either.

So I did what all good marketers do, I made changes based on my results.

I abandoned my podcasting show, and cut way back on my blog posting. It was a sad day for me because I really wanted to believe both would provide me a great way to share with my audience, and enable them to share back.

Problem was, NO ONE was sharing back! In two years of blogging I can count the number of comments posted on two hands.

I know I am not alone in this. I frequently visit other blogs, and there is WAY more posting going on than comments.

Yes, some blogs are very dynamic, but in my experience they are few and far between. Just ask yourself how often you've taken the time to comment on a blog post that you've read. See what I mean?

So what is the verdict on blogging? Should you employ it as a marketing tactic?
Well, here are a few things to consider.

(1) Search engines love blogs

Search engines love fresh content and because blogs are constantly updated with new posts, and potentially comments, they are quite dynamic.

Using your keywords in blog posts can help them come up in relevant online searches faster and easier than traditional website content.

I use Google Alerts to track mentions of my name and each of my companies online and 90% of the results I see are from my blog posts.

So from a traffic generating aspect, blogs can be a great marketing tool.

(2) How tight is your niche?

One of the things I realized AFTER I got into the blogging game was that my blog was too general. Small business marketing is a terribly crowded category online, which means lots of competition.

If I had it to do over again, I would pick a much tighter niche for my blog.

(3) A separate blog or a blog on your website?

My blog links to my various websites but it is a separate site with its own URL: www.10stepmarketingConnection.com

This means it's one more "place" I have to market to drive traffic to. AND, more importantly, it means that my main websites don't benefit from all the increased traffic the blog receives as a result of the search engine friendliness.

If I had it to do over again, I would incorporate my blog into my website. In fact one model I am looking at right now for a new business I am planning is to build the website on a blog platform, making the home page in essence a blog.

That way I can drive traffic to ONE site, and I enjoy all of the benefits of search engine friendliness to my MAIN website.

(4) Is your audience a community-oriented group?

If your audience thrives on community, interaction and information sharing, then they may be very likely to comment on your blog posts.

If however, they are merely an information-seeking audience (which is what I determined my audience was) then you can post until the cows come home, and very rarely will anyone comment.

You may be okay with this, as long as one of your goals is not to create a two-way conversation.

As with all marketing strategies, think about your audience and choose marketing that fits them. Sometimes you may not know until after the fact (as in my case), but often if you ask the questions up front, you can be pretty sure of the answer and you can make your decisions accordingly.

(5) Are you committed to posting to your blog regularly?

Maintaining a blog can be a very time intensive endeavor. To create a robust blog you need to post at least several times per week - I know some folks who post daily!

While you can write all of your blog posts ahead of time and schedule them to post every couple of days (a strategy that I used that made it much easier to manage), you still need to commit to setting aside the time to come up with content ideas and do the writing.

If you cannot commit to a regular blogging schedule, or you wonder what the heck you will post about, then creating a blog probably isn't for you.

So, to blog or not to blog?

In the end, the decision about whether blogging makes sense for you is a question only you can answer. These 5 points can help you find that answer.

First and foremost, you will want to determine what your objective for creating a blog is, and then track your results to make sure your blog is delivering those results.

After all, tracking is the ONLY sure way to know what works for YOUR business and what doesn't.

In the end, I am glad I learned about blogging and created my blog. While it was tough to admit that it didn't accomplish the goals I set for it after a significant investment of time and money, I know that as is the case with all of my marketing efforts, there are valuable lessons in everything I do.

The important thing is to learn those lessons and apply what you learn to the next marketing endeavor.

For me, I continue to blog, but I don't spend as much time on it as I used to. Instead, I choose to focus that time on other marketing avenues that have proved more profitable for me.

What about you?

If you've had a difference experience with blogging, I encourage you to post a comment and share.