I was recently asked by a client whether or not they should add a blog to their new website. They were particularly interested in knowing from an SEO perspective whether or not it made sense relative to the keywords they wanted to go after. I’ve been asked this question a lot. Our clients are a smart bunch and they want to allocate their limited resources effectively. If they can save some money by trimming a feature out of their web development budget while not missing out on a greater opportunity cost, then they’re going to do so.

As far as SEO goes, a blog is almost always an excellent way to build up your presence in the search engines regardless of your market, keywords and competition. Nevertheless, the answer I usually give is “You might not want to waste your money.” (I’m definitely aware of the delicious irony as I compose and publish this on the medium of a business blog!)

There’s three things you must consider when deciding whether or not to add a blog to your site:

1. Is Search Engine Marketing a minor part of your overall marketing effort? If so, then don’t bother with a blog.
2. Will your organization consistently commit the time and/or money into regularly creating content (i.e. 2-4 blog posts/ week for 12-18 months)? If not, then definitely don’t bother.
3. Will your organization commit the time to socially promoting your content? If not, then you probably don’t want to bother with a blog.

I suspect I’ve already inflamed some blog lovers and blog purists out there with #1. The blog purists tend to believe that “the journey is the destination” and that blogging is it’s own reward. While I’m sure this is the case for many bloggers, our clients are savvy business owners. They can certainly trim their web development budget and get the same personal edification and benefits by keeping a personal journal using old fashioned pen and paper for less than $5. I’m not going to advise our clients to shell out the extra cash to add a blog to their site, just because it can be a personally enriching exercise. Business Blogs have to give a return on investment that justify their cost.

However, the web development cost of a blog is just the tip of the iceberg. Building infrastructure into a website is the easy and affordable part. What you really need to ask is: are you willing to invest the time, energy, money and resources into developing and promoting your blog’s content? This can be a very substantial investment, but the rewards can be even greater. Here’s why:

Google loves blogs!

There are numerous reasons Google loves blogs and most pretty much boil down to them being a social proof of value for a particular piece of web content. One metric Google looks at on a blog post is how large and how active the comment thread is. I’ve seen a prominent national brand name badgered by a “Why Brand Name Sucks” blog post that shows right beneath their site on page 1 of the Google for a search of their own brand name. It has become THE magnet for that brand’s haters on the web. Anyone with a gripe against that brand that’s ever queried Google with the brand name appears to have read the blog and then shared their beef on the comment thread. It’s now a self-perpetuating feedback loop. That post is firmly entrenched on p1 right below the brand name’s own website (even though it has minimal backlinks and PageRank) which is too bad for the brand owner.

Also Google can be “gamed” via on-site structural tricks. Just repost identical content across multiple URLs and then shuffle those unique URLs across multiple keyword targeted category pages. Wash, rinse, repeat and presto! Instant and effective on-site SEO without the need for messy link building. Some might call that fishy, spammy or gamey, but no one disputes that it’s currently working.

Lastly and perhaps more compellingly, well written blogs that serve as linkbait can be a cornerstone of an organic link building campaign. For instance Jeb’s blog post on Compendium was interesting and controversial enough to get some in the blogosphere to join in the conversation and link back to his post that started the whole fracas. More natural backlinks coming into your site = better SEO! This is an SEO benefit that will survive many, many changes to the Google algorithm.

But here’s the catch!

After seeing all these SEO and SEM benefits to blogging you might think only an idiot wouldn’t bother adding one to their business website. However, there are two big catches you need to be aware of.

First, creating effective content takes time (or money to pay someone else to do it for you). Blogs start losing their value when you aren’t committed as an organization to blogging (i.e. to creating the content). At a minimum you’re looking at blogging at least 3-4 times a week for the first 12-18 months. Once your domain and blog get established and build some authority you can start to ease up the pace.

You can’t reasonably expect your web developer to write the content for you b/c it’s not their core competency. Jeb and I met with one of the owners of a local company that blogs on behalf of businesses for the business blog. It’s all they do. He seemed like a nice and able fellow and I’ve been wanting to try them out for some time. For some businesses with less time than money this could be a great solution.

Second, blogs have to be promoted which also takes time. If you build it, they will NOT come. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and Mixx, social networking sites like Facebook and SmallerIndiana, and the emerging wunderkind, Twitter, are all necessary tools. In the early days of Internet marketing you could use primitive, mechanical, spammy methods to promote a blog (or any site for that matter). But those don’t really work anymore. Successfully promoting a blog amounts to building a community around your brand and/or products/services.

So, for these tools to be effective you have to be social (after all they are first and foremost social media). This means seeking out like minded individuals that share common interests and having a conversation with them OUTSIDE your blog and ON the various social media channels. You might cringe at allocating resources to building content on other people’s sites, but it is a necessary evil. Building up a social network around each of these tools will require an investment of your organization’s time. Our own blog didn’t really take off until after Jeb built up his own Twitter network and then started using it to promote his blog posts.

If you have to pick one social media tool to focus your energy on, I’d currently recommend Twitter. It’ll one day implode under it’s own weight (like a super nova or MySpace), but should be good for at least a couple more years.

Well there you have it. Don’t waste your money on a business blog (unless search engine marketing is an important piece of your overall marketing efforts and you’re going to invest the time and effort into making it work). I defy you to get me to change my mind.