By now everyone knows what a blog is and also how the “blogosphere” is becoming a competitor to established news outlets such as newspapers and magazines. Blogs are also commonly used to support more traditional sites that are not updated as frequently. They can bring repeat traffic to your website.

So everyone should have a blog… Well not so fast.

Lifespan of a Fruitfly

The lifespan of a typical blog has been compared to the lifespan of a fruitfly. Many blogs are launched only to be abandoned within months if not days. There has been a lot of speculation about why that is. A likely factor is that the reward does not always equal the effort. Blogs need to be maintained which means that you need to publish new material with some level of frequency. This sounds easy, but often is not.

Should You Blog?

Here are three simple questions to ask yourself when you think about starting a blog:

1. Do you have a specific purpose?
2. What is your desired frequency of publishing?
3. Is it realistic to expect that you will update your blog that frequently?

If you answered, yes, to all of the questions then it makes sense to proceed. We recommend that you start by accumulating several articles. This way you can schedule their release over time while you create new content.

Custom Design and Setup Support

So, you are not daunted by the abandonment rate of the typical blog and you want to get started. If you want a custom design, integration with your regular site or just someone to set up the blog for you, we can help! We use WordPress because it has great features and it is well-supported by the development community.