Benefit of Blogging?

what your site gets out of it?

[vc181200]

I have a site that sells wigets. Is having a blogging section going to have a large impact on my PR or my visitors?

I'm still trying to figure out what this is.

Thank you,

VC

[Harvs]

My understanding of a blogger is someones journal or thoughts that are posted on the internet. The person adds their thoughts or ideas when they feel like it and people read it just for fun.

I don't think that this would really be good for a sales type of website because you are trying to run a business from the site not put your personal thoughts up.

What you might do is put a forum, similar to this, on the site so people can give you feedback but it all depends on the product. I have seen some good forums on software pages where people put their thoughts of the software and other people comment on them.

On the other hand I doubt someone like Maccas is going to put one on their site because all they would get is hate mail :)

[topr8]

a 'blog' can be usefully used to manage 'site news' or 'press release' type information.

[Rosalind]

A lot of the hype about the value of blogs is a result of certain prominent bloggers who have been successful. In practice a blog is only as useful as what is written in it, and how often. If you added new pages of content to an existing site it would work equally well, you don't have to call it a blog and use it to write anything that comes into your head, like last night's TV.

The true value of a blog is in the ease of updating it. By all means use blogging technology to add news, but don't feel you have to stick to the usual blog format in order to be successful.

[Odatpup]

What everyone else said.

Also, another possible 'benefit' (depending on your goals, of course) is that if a blog is linked to (whether someone links to individual posts, or to the blog as a whole), it can lead to visits by all manner of crawlers and spiders. In theory, anyway. YMMV. :)

[freeflight2]

social currencypeople getting personally attached to your site

[redleaf]

I believe the true value of the blog is that it gives your user an interactive environment -- to feel the website is alive, to gain thrust to the site, and most of all, to give them a reason to re-visit which then bring more traffic to the site.

--just a few coins-- :)

[stef24]

its new content, a good reason for people to revisit.

research shows that people will only buy from you site after visiting it an average of 7 times. the previous 6 visits could be reading your blog