Small businesses in the UK are failing to harness the power of the blogosphere despite being aware of the monetary treats ‘web logs’ could bring to their business.
A report by Fasthosts yesterday revealed a growing understanding among entrepreneurs of how blogs – informal Web diaries – could transform their business through traffic and reputation.
If a blog was set up linked to their business, almost half of self-employed respondents think increased traffic to their company website would result, serving to boost their bottom line.
But only three per cent – about 69 company directors – plan to launch a blog to take advantage of the potential for more customers and increased sales of their products or services.
That’s despite small business having the freedom to ‘get blogging,’ compared to their permanently employed counterparts who face corporate restrictions if they join the blogosphere.
“In today’s hyper-competitive market, blogs provide a fantastic way for small businesses to differentiate themselves through personalising their website and attracting more customers,” said Andrew Michael, Fasthosts’ CEO.
Contrary to the belief that a blog will only be popular among the masses if it updates daily with new content, Mr Michael told Freelance UK that readers will return for quality, not quantity.
“The problem here is education,” he said, responding to why entrepreneurs are turning their backs on blogs.
“There is a clear misconception amongst small business owners that to realise the benefits of keeping a blog, they need to spend massive amounts of time and resource in keeping the content fresh.
“Our research, however, found this was simply not the case, with respondents indicating that timely, quality posts were key to whether they returned to a blog or not, and not necessarily the frequency of the messaging.”
The results indicate owner-managers are missing an opportunity to drive more potential clients to their website, as despite 26% saying daily updates were vital, more than a third said the blog’s content was more important than its volume.
Meanwhile figures from Technorati suggest 54million blog sites are currently live, with around 75,000 new ones created every day.
Sep 29, 2006
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