If you’ve read anything on this blog, you’ve learned that business blogging is a wildly effective way to get fresh new content on your site. That’s important, because guess who loves fresh content? Search engines. The more you serve it up, the more frequently search engines visit your site, and the better your chances of showing up in front of the right people.

But what would happen if you just … stop blogging? How does that impact your site’s visibility and SEO?

what happens when you quit blogging?

This guy named Robert Ryan, an SEO expert and social media manager and WordPress developer (read: he knows his stuff) wondered the same thing. And in 2015, he stopped blogging for a full eight months and a week to find out the answer.

And wouldn’t you know it, there was a lot of fallout from this move.

  • Site traffic as a whole dropped by 32 percent
  • Organic traffic plummeted nearly by half – 42 percent
  • Site conversions fell by almost 30 percent

Those are wild numbers, and they reinforce what we know about effective and consistent blogging. It’s a must for small businesses (big ones too), and outsourcing it to the right person can make a world of difference to your bottom line.

When you blog sporadically or badly, or when you stop and start and stop again, your organic traffic suffers. And that is really the lifeline of a business, because that traffic is made up of your customers (and potential customers).

Blogging regularly – and well – is the difference between a dynamic website, and a static one. And let’s be real, Google’s algorithms are a mystery – no one can definitively explain how they work – but neither can we argue that quitting a blog means a big hit to organic traffic and site visibility.

Remember that your business blog doesn’t exist to sell anything. Instead, it’s a place where you provide value to people. And with that value comes connections and the opportunity to build a rapport with people. It’s a place where you build trust.

People like that. There are statistics proving it, but you don’t need numbers to prove it. Consider your own experiences. I know I’m much more likely to have the warm fuzzies for a business after reading great content on their blog.

sending the right message

There’s another consideration when you suddenly quit blogging. What kind of impression does that make on site visitors who do manage to make it over? A suddenly-untended blog seems to shout trouble. Why the sudden loss of activity? Is the business having problems? It can be a credibility killer, and no one wants that.

It’s impossible to say whether you’d have the same drastic results that Mr. Ryan experienced. But to me, it speaks volumes about the power of blogging and the value of committing to it. If you don’t have the time or the know-how, bring in someone who does.