It seems odd, that in today’s modern business environment where the importance of Online Marketing is widely perceived as being a central strategy to the success and growth of business in general, there are still numerous small companies who decide not to have a web presence.

Recent studies conducted in the US by Barlow Research, shows out of the 680 small companies surveyed, 51% currently have no website, with 38% of these not planning to have a web presence for at least the next year. For those small businesses that do have websites, several of them will be poorly optimised and so, would receive a low Search Engine Placement result from a search engine such as Google. undoubtedly this can have a huge impact on business and it’s believed that up to 70% of UK web based companies, whichdon’t have optimised website’s fail within their first 3 years. This is to say, the sites are no longer live on the internet.

Now I’m not saying for a moment, that it’s vital for every small business to have a well maintained website, which is properly optimised for high Search Engine Placement. For this, the services of a reputable search Search Engine Optimization Company is rneeded and although this should bring about huge returns in the form of increased high quality traffic, the decision to employ these services must be judged on the size and nature of the business in question. What must also be taken into account is whether the likely increase in profits from higher traffic conversion, will justify the continuing costs involved in utilising such a service long term. A company with a yearly revenue of £50,000 will usually have a much tighter expense budget and may derive less benefit from a strong Online Marketing strategy, than say a business which grosses two million a year. The interesting point here is, both of these companies can be deemed as small businesses, yet for at least one of them, the services of a Search Engine Optimization Company is undoubtedly viable. Never let it be said, it’s not worth the expense for small companies to go down the professional optimisation route. It just depends on how the phrase small business is defined.

The kind of business is also a factor. Take for example, a local plumber who works mostly through referrals from builders and has a a few established commercial accounts. The lack of any Online Marketing may not be particularly damaging to his business or detrimental to how his customers are served. In contrast, a small family company that sells luxury chocolates and only has a few stores, will greatly limit public access to its goods and so damaging its sales potential, if it’s without a well functioning website. If the site’s been properly optimised, the business is likely to get far more trade from internet orders, through searches on Google or other search engines, than that of word of mouth or any kind of traditional advertising, a company of this size could practically afford to undertake.

Google is undoubtedly the king of search engines and has permanently altered and continues to change the landscape of the internet. In order to stay competitive, many owners of small businesses will no doubt feel they have little choice but to develop their own websites and make sure they stay well optimised. As for those companies who up until now, have been happily existing without employing Online Marketing, many may find the business climate of the near future, less sympathetic to their current marketing strategy.

Keeping a blog up to date is one of the most important aspects of blogging. This is so important because regular blog visitors expect new postings on a regular basis. Not all visitors expect to see a new post as often as once a day but most blog readers expect the content on the blog to be updated on a regular basis. In most cases visitors expect new content on at least a weekly basis. However, depending on the subject matter the visitors may expect updates on a basis which is either more frequent. Similarly visitors may not be interested in receiving this type of information more than a few times a year. Blog owners should be aware of the frequency of which readers expect new posts and should make an effort to oblige the readers with updates this often. This article will discuss methods for keeping a blog up to date including scheduling a regular time to post blogs, using publishing tools wisely and hiring guest bloggers when necessary.

Finding Time to Post Daily

One way to help to ensure a blog remains up to date is to schedule time to post blogs on a daily basis. This is especially important when blog readers expect new posts on a daily basis or at least several times per week. Bloggers who allot a specific block of time each day to researching, writing and publishing blogs are more likely to have a blog which is up to date than bloggers who plan on accomplishing tasks when they find time to do so. There may still be days in which the blogger is unable to publish a new post on the blog but these days will be less frequent than if the blogger does not have a block of time strictly dedicated to keeping the blog up to date.

On days in which the blog is unable to devote time to blogging, the blogger may wish to at least publish a short message explaining why it was not possible to post a new blog entry. This will let readers know you are aware of their desire to read more information but are simply unable to publish a new blog post. As long as this does not become a regular occurrence, blog visitors are not likely to stop viewing a blog simply because the blogger skips a day or two.

Taking Advantage of Publishing Tools

Some blog publishing tools enable bloggers to write blog posts ahead of time and specify when each post should be published. This is an excellent feature for bloggers who want to publish new posts daily but are unable to dedicate time each day to writing blog posts. This way the blogger can dedicate a block of time each week to write blog posts and have the posts published throughout the week. This is often an easier method for many bloggers because they are able to be more efficient this way.

Hiring Guest Bloggers

Bloggers may also want to consider hiring guest bloggers to assist them in keeping a blog up to date. This can be a worthwhile method for bloggers who are not only having difficulty keeping their blog up to date but are also interested in providing readers with a little variety. However, blog owners who opt for this message of keeping their blog up to date should carefully consider how the dedicated blog readers will react to this change. This is important because some readers may not be interested in reading blogs written by a guest blogger. Therefore the use of a guest blogger can actually be more detrimental to the blog than not updating the blog regularly. Bloggers can gauge reader reaction to the use of guest bloggers in a couple of different ways. The simplest and most straight forward method is to poll the readers about the use of guest bloggers. This can be done by asking readers to comment on the issue and tabulating the comments received. Another method to gauge reader reaction is to introduce a guest blogger and compare the traffic the guest blogger receives to the traffic the blog owner receives.

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