Do you feel that company blogs are read by potential clients and clients or are they just ignored?

If they are useful, they will do well. Eg with tutorials or offers.

It can show a personal touch to a company, which a lot of people like.

If they are useful, they will do well. Eg with tutorials or offers.

It can show a personal touch to a company, which a lot of people like.

Do you think if it not regularly updated it may have a negative impact on the visitors confidence in the company?

Regards
Nish

Do you think if it not regularly updated it may have a negative impact on the visitors confidence in the company?

Regards
Nish

Yes. If it's not updated, it could make the company look like they are closed or whatever.

As stated above, a company blog helps to bring a more personal relation between them and the clients.

I really appreciate seeing a blog run by a company. It doesn't have to be long posts, but you can easily keep it simple by putting some tutorials and some news regarding your company.

I personally like them. It is a nice touch, keeping up with customers. And yeah, definitely doesn't need to be like PerezHilton but some effort is always good.

Even on Twitter, some quick one-liner jokes or something. I'm weird :P

I personally like them. It is a nice touch, keeping up with customers. And yeah, definitely doesn't need to be like PerezHilton but some effort is always good.

Even on Twitter, some quick one-liner jokes or something. I'm weird :P

I can't remember what company it was, but they were posting jokes that were pretty funny.

I must never do that though. I'm not funny :(

Thanks for the comments. I have decided it would be best if the company I am forming also has a blog.

Blogs are a way to make your clients enthusiastic about your current activity. As a client I would really like the company blogs.

I think they also make clients realize that the company is still 'active' and working on improving services. Personally I don't regularly monitor the blogs of companies I do business with, but them having one does help me to sign up in the first place.

Would it not help for Search Engine ranks as well.

They can definately be useful in the search engines. I think I would read a blog of a hosting company I was thinking of using. Depending on the style and purpose of the blog it can show a human side to the company. I marketting expert I was talking to said every company should have a blog. Make sure it is updated though - it doesn't have to be every day but at least once a week. More regularly would be better though.

Company blog may help to attract new clients, but only if blog is interesting and full of fresh information. Otherwise, it will have opposite effect

I know HostGator blog is very nice and I read it regularly myself, although I'm not their customer anymore. :) I also have a Twitter widget on my website and I do post news and promos there but I have 0 followers so far.. :)

I would agree that blogs add a personal touch to a company's website, and add value if updated regularly. Content is key.

Blogs certainly bring a more person touch to you're website. It also shows your knowledge.

You can also rank high for long tail keywords with a blog.

We launched a company blog a couple months ago. It is a nice way to connect with current and prospective clients. Personally, I like how the Facebook fan page is on our blog and kind of connects with our Facebook page. We also used a subdomain for our blog because that can help with search engine rankings. We try to do at least 2 posts per week and it helps keep us fresh and learning. I think it can definitely help in branding your company and SEO.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check our blog @ http://blog.webnethosting.net ...

Also, we are trying to get active with Technorati and/or similar sites. Does anyone have experience with Technorati? I find it somewhat confusing and am still not sure how your blog gains authority on the site? Does anyone have suggestions for similar sites to Technorati? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Yes updating your blogs periodically can win your customers interest and they might stuck to your websites and find interesting.

I Think that a good blog creates new customers :agree:

We have a blog, we've had one for some time, but with the new site in development we lacked on the posting for a while. :(

Always good to have though.

I will said like a customer,

I really like to see a blog from a hosting company,

its look (when its correctly update) that the company are active, and trying to do more humain communication -

I really love to see for exemple that the company will buy some new server due to the rush or something like that

See the company growing etc

I plan to open a blog also for my new launch, but I will not open till I have some comment on it, because like all said - if the blog are not correctly updated, that will decrease your credibility!

I Think that a good blog creates new customers :agree:

I would say a good blog MAY ATTRACT new customers.

I would say that implementing a company's forum is rather better than to have a blog. Almost all reliable hosts prefer to have a forum in order to communicate with customers and make their conersation clear for other people.

Company forum is also an idea worth considering, but I know some examples when company forums got flooded by bad reviews of people who have NEVER used services provided by company.

The problem with providing forums, and why we changed ours with our new website, is that if they are underused, it sets a bad example.

Forums and blogs can work well from a branding and cutomer use point of view. A blog, though, is much easier to maintain. Once set up you only really have to add the odd post and that's it.

Blogs would add a personal touch to the company, but if they are not active and updated, it would make the company look deserted.

The most important aspect of any blog both personal and business is content , there is nothing worse than reading company blogs which are nothing more than advertising platforms , a good company blog should try to write orginal relevant content based on your area of expertise (which is this case web hosting) , instead of simply putting other peoples opinions on it , let people know what you think and why and get conversation started.

Our blog works very well for us. We post once every 5 days about a subject directly related to the industry. For example, linux (we recently did a three part series on SSH), comparison of blog software, etc...

I find that once we post a new blog entry, we nearly immediately have a spike in visitor count that read the blog post and some of them even return in the future to purchase service.

You MUST update it on a SCHEDULE and with VALUED content though.

SCHEDULE is more important than 'often'. You need to update it every 5 days, every 15 days, etc... not "5 times a month" that way visitors will know when to expect something great.

VALUE is the second most important term here. Your blog post should be direct, to-the-point, cover meaningful material, and properly be written for your projected audience (those looking for web hosting).