Is there life in the old blog yet?

The Internet is still growing at a jaw-dropping pace. The number of published websites have increased massively in the last decade with conservative estimates now putting the figure well in excess of 200,000,000 (200m) sites.

For a commercial organisation, this will almost certainly mean increased competition. So today, a web presence alone may not be enough to drive business growth. So what’s one of the simplest and most effective ways to deliver what your customers are looking for? Well, it’s not an entirely new concept by any stretch – it’s blogging.

Now blogging has had a bit of a rough ride over the last year or so with many ‘power’ bloggers deciding to throw the towel in citing a number of reasons including the meteoric rise of its sister platform – the micro-blog – and Twitter in particular.

But should we be giving up on the trusty old web log? Well, there are a number of compelling reasons why we should persist.

Firstly, blogging still remains one of the principal conduits to driving quality web traffic directly and indirectly. Recent statistics have revealed that the average blog attracts 55% more visitors and gets indexed 434% more by search engines than a typical website.

Secondly, if blogging was on the slippery slope that some would have us believe, this doesn’t explain the continued investment in blogs by the majority of the mainstream media who clearly believe in the value that blogging brings. Granted, in a media context, blogs are very informational in their nature with content that would typically include commentary and opinion but still remains a central part of syndicated news content.

But remember that a blog is about more than simply pumping out words. Blogs need to have an element of planning and strategy behind them to deliver measurable results. Done consistently well, a blog can still make a difference to your marketing effort in an attempt to attract new customers, build brand awareness and inspire your prospects to buy.

In summary, there’s still plenty of evidence to suggest that, as far as the humble blog is concerned, “rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated!”

So if you’re no longer blogging or have reduced the rate at which you’re contributing to your blog, you may just want to look again.