Far too often when we’re contacted by new prospects, the first thing we do is check out their website. I’m sure most folks today do this when interacting with almost any business - even more so in business to business exchanges. But while we’re examining the website for background, overall design, and insights into existing or potential marketing issues - one thing we’re always looking for is a blog.

We’re ardent supporters of starting and maintaining a blog on virtually every business website. There are many reasons for this which we’ve covered previously: thought leadership, content marketing, pre and follow-up sales support, etc. So when we encounter a site that doesn’t have a blog already, once we start working with them the first thing we recommend and do is start up a blog. But what’s worse than finding a site without no blog is finding one that has one that’s languished, un-updated for weeks, months, or years.

Either blog do... or blog don’t do. But never blog so so

It’s one of our greatest pet peeves, when someone starts a blog and then abandons it or only haphazardly supports it. It’s simply an egregious business mistake. It demonstrates a lack of commitment and a dismissal of online marketing. Or worse, it can be perceived as the business is experiencing distress. At the best, it simply looks bad, as does any incomplete or broken page on a website.

Visitors who stumble upon your blog will end up disappointed if it’s not maintained and updated regularly. Likewise, Google and other search engines will also visit infrequently and your content will drop in natural listings. Search engines really prefer blogs that are updated regularly. Further, with the advent of Google’s new author rank blogging and content generation is becoming increasingly important to SEO efforts - even if it’s in its infancy.

So if you don’t have a blog, start one, but only do so if you’re able to keep posting. Our minimum suggestion is once per week. It’s even better if you can do it more frequently or if you have multiple people posting each week. The more the better. Avoid fluffy, spammy posts - strive to make each post interesting, informative, educational, or beneficial to your audience. But once you start... don’t ever stop or let your efforts fade.