One of the most often asked questions we get from our clients is whether or not they should have a blog on their website. There really is no easy answer to this, but the bottom line is you really should have one… if you have the time to write one regularly and you have the basic writing skills necessary to write it well.

A blog is a great way to keep new content on your site, something that is known to help a site’s search engine optimization (SEO). Applying the old “all things being equal” rule, if two competing businesses have websites that are essentially the same, the one that has new refreshed content will rank better than one that has not been updated for a very long time.

But there is a caveat to this. An important one too. If your blog has become stagnant, this may not necessarily hurt you in the search engines, but it will definitely affect how your web visitors perceive you. The last thing you want is to have someone go to the blog on your website and see that the most recent post is over a year old.

How Often Should You Blog?
At the very least, you should blog once a month, once every other week is better. The problem here is of course your content. What are you going to write about? Is it just fluff to take up space and make it look like you have been regularly posting? That would be bad.

Who Should Write The Blog Posts?
If you are the expert regarding your service or product, you most likely are the best person to create this content. But what if you don’t have writing skills? Do you have an employee that could write the posts?

If you have an employee write your posts, make sure to thoroughly review anything they write for accuracy and grammatical/typographical errors. If you are unsure of your own abilities, it may be necessary to have a third party help you out by reviewing the writing.

Should You Hire a Ghost Writer?
This is a possibility of course, but that could get expensive and the person or company you choose to write your posts may not be reliable or as good at composing posts as you would like.

If you are going to hire an outside person, ask for samples of their work. Once you see what they have created for someone else, copy a block of text, perhaps a sentence or two and than paste that sentence into Google. Are there other identical sentences showing up on other websites? If so, run away from that person/company as fast as possible, they are not writing original copy and you may be using someone else’s content which could lead to many bad outcomes.

Should I Add Graphics To My Posts?
Yes. If you can find an image that relates to what the post is about, adding an image may engage more people. Make sure that you have the rights to use a graphic to avoid any copyright issues. It’s always best to use a picture of one of your products, or perhaps even a smiling employee working in your shop that you took yourself.

Once you have your post written, add it to your site and then make sure to let any social media sites that you use know of the new post by submitting the first paragraph to the site with a link back to your website. This will help create more links to your website that can create new traffic and more visibility in the search engines.