I mentioned in my post yesterday that many consultants feel every business should have a blog on their website. In fact, you probably won’t find many that disagree with that sentiment.

Well, you found one - I disagree. In fact, I think most business websites should NOT have a blog. 

Here’s why:

The basic premise of the thought “all websites should have a blog” is soft and pretentious. First of all, not every industry out there lends itself to ongoing written interaction with clients. I may be way off, but how much interactive discussion about brake line hoses could there possibly be? Apologies in advance to Captain BrakePad, the “wild and crazy maven of all things brakes”, but I’m not sure how interesting that blog would be.

Secondly, the thought that “every website should have a blog” assumes the website owners can write well. I dunno - I’m in the business of writing, and I can tell you, most people view writing as a serious chore, and thus, don’t really put the effort required into it (psst: that’s a nice way of saying most people don’t write very well… it’s ok, we all know it’s true. It’s the reason I can make a living at this.)

Lastly, a blog is a serious commitment. If you have a blog, and your last entry was two months ago, well, that hurts you a little - it essentially says “I do not care enough to keep this current” (of course, you may have a good reason, like that Dan Furman guy did when his new blog was being worked on. But at least he said so ). And if the last entry was six months ago?? That flat-out says “I’m lazy, and do not finish what I start”. Do you really want people thinking that?

Now that might be unfair of me, but it’s true - when I see “dated” things on a website, and the dates are old, that’s a problem.     

So three things need to be in place before you have a blog:

1. You have things to say.
2. You can say them in an interesting manner.
3. You will keep saying these things. Consistently.

If any of the three are missing, you’re probably better off not having a blog at all.