Too many so-called “marketing experts” want to tell you that the best way to market your business online is through blogging. Honestly? It depends on you. Here are four reasons you should NOT be blogging.

You can’t keep a consistent blogging schedule.

Did you know? Blogs that post daily get five times more traffic than those that post weekly or less.

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Some “marketing experts” and agencies will have dozens of blogs they are juggling, attempting to boost their search traffic – but honestly, if you have no consistency in publishing on your blog, your results will be sub-par. You just can’t build a following that way. If you are consistent – blogging could be worth your time.

Alternatively, you could just create a welcome and contact page on your website that could tell people what you are doing online, how you participate, and where they could find you (how you best can be reached).

This way, you can go out and spend time on your favorite networks, like Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Twitter (depending on your industry), and share great content that you read yourself for professional development. Grow your connections, engage with them, listen to your audience and competition, and always, always be improving… if you know anything about community management, you’ll know what to do.

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You don’t know how much work is involved.

If you think it’s going to be fun to blog – you may want to rethink your plans.

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The problem is, professional bloggers and marketers spend a lot of time on their blogs. And writing is not the only thing they need to do. They spend much of their time promoting their blog and building a following. If these are not within your skill-set, you may find yourself spinning wheels, never hitting the ground.

While we are at it – the online get-rich-quick blogging schemes are lies. Those are just naive and some flat-out malicious people trying to make a dollar online. There is a LOT of work on the road to blogging fortunes. Most times, the benefit of the blogging will not be a directly monetary one anyway, but more on that later (insert future link to post that does not yet exist here).

Why waste all that time just to realize you didn’t have the proper training or ability to begin with? If you don’t have a conversion path and plan for content, and you don’t spend the time you need to build the relationships you need to succeed – you will not drive sales.

You don’t know what you are doing.

Sales has fundamentally changed. The buyer is now in control. If you think blogging is going to be some magic pill for your business and your sales numbers, stop now. Blogging is a time sink with an ROI that can be quite difficult to measure (well, except for most blogs, where the ROI is none). Even the most tech-savvy bloggers have issues with truly tracking where some of their clients are coming from.

Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Spend the next few months figuring out Google Analytics tags and events, track your button clicks and sessions (LOTS to learn!), and then come back and tell me how many people came from your 253rd blog post about Widget Manufacturing and rushed to their phone to call you and place an order.

Content needs to have purpose – designed to move your reader, your viewers or your listeners (I <3 Podcasting and HOA Series). Not only that, but you are building relationships. It takes time for those relationships to mature to one of trust and authority in an area. Try to push sales too quickly and you’ll find yourself losing readers with a high bounce rate.

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People buy directly from you.

Do you have a business where people have to buy from you directly in person or over the phone? Stop wasting your time struggling with a blog you will never be able to keep up or stand out with.

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Rather than blogging, head to Google+ Communities or LinkedIn Groups, or go elsewhere, like Quora. Quora is another favorite place of mine, and one I do want to try and get back to using more consistently, answering a few questions each week at the very least. As a replacement to blogging, you can spend even more time than that within the help and Q&A based community. Search for people asking questions about the problems they are having in your industry. Solve their problems. Never be aggressive with sales. Share your expertise, Discuss the industry with other users and (GASP!) your competition. Show people you know what you are talking about, give them a way to contact you, and nurture the relationships you build there.

You do not have to have a blog in order to be present on the internet. No more hard deadlines, no more incessant SEO tweaking and result chasing (and with Google+, you can cut the line with Search + Your World). Like a traveling salesman (without the greasy hair and hard sales pitch) – wander the lands – find those topics and those people that are interesting to you, and share your expertise with them.

Guess what? You don’t have to listen to me.

Wait, what? Yes. I’m actually admitting to you that I do not have all the answers. Blogging may not be for everybody, but it is definitely up at the top of the list of inbound marketing tactics that really can set a business apart from the competition.

Did you know? Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI

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hubspot.com/2014-state-of-inbound

Don’t go misreading statistics like this one above. These studies are not hard and fast rules. These are based on surveys of marketers and industry professionals, or data from specific blogs online. These are not necessarily the “Average Joes” running their business or personal blogs. These are professional marketers with skills and years of experience in inbound marketing, sales, and writing, let alone the other industries they may be writing about. When some marketer starts telling you that you HAVE to blog for your small business because the “statistics say blah blah blah” just smack them, and think about whether its really important to your business.

And PLEASE, if you don’t know what you are doing, just call a professional. Many marketers, myself included, as more than happy to share our expertise with you. All you have to do is ask.

Blogging just might be what your business needs. It could also be a complete and utter waste of time that could leave you worse off than had you spent the time working on your business instead.

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