One of the fastest ways to turn off a potential customer is an outdated website. Whether its an outdated website design, old contact information or a blog that died after the first few posts, your customers are judging you from the moment they visit your website.

Today we'll be taking a look at one popular constantly updating feature: Blogs. Many businesses start a blog with good intentions. Whether to share their knowledge or attract potential clients by offering relevent information, blogs are an excellent way to add value to a website. Unfortunately, writing a good blog takes time and the return on investment takes time to develop.

A dead blog is worse than no blog at all

Nothing can pull down a good website more than a dead or inactive blog. From a client's perspective, your business blog is a committment that you've failed to meet. Your customer will likely wonder if you'll drop the ball on their work. If you choose to have a blog, make sure that you set a deadline for new material and always push yourself to meet that deadline.

If you choose to stop blogging at any point, make sure that choice is clear. Some businesses choose to mark their blog as historical, while others remove their blogs entirely. Any blog posts that generated a good deal of traffic or add value to your site should be transferred to static content pages.

Quality is more important than quantity

Just like your customers wouldn't appreciate a phone call every hour to tell them the project is going as expected, readers of your blog won't appreciate constant updates with little value. Its important that your blog posts have meaning; don't blog about a new product or service unless you have a wealth of valuable information to pass on.

Quality also means mundane things like checking your spelling and grammar. Even more important is checking your research; nothing hurts company's image more than looking like you don't know your own business. Take the time to research your topics online and offline; see what other bloggers or rival companies are saying about the topic. Insisting on using high quality sources when gathering information for your blog will pay off with enhanced credibility in the long run.