Aug 20, 2007

Blog It and They May ComeBy Sarah NeedlemanOnline.WSJ.com

A few months after launching a blog early last year, Get It In Writing Inc. started seeing traffic to its Web site soar.

Today the small marketing-copywriting firm in Boca Raton, Fla., draws as many as 150,000 unique visitors a month to its site, compared with an average of only 100 before the blog, which features advice and trends on marketing and resides within the company’s Web site.

But Allison Nazarian, the company’s 36-year-old founder and president, says all that traffic didn’t lead to more sales right away. In fact, the site’s sudden popularity even brought on a new financial burden. “We ended up having to upgrade our Web site’s hosting plan so it could accommodate that level of traffic,” she says.

Now, the number of new clients is finally on the rise, as are sales, she says. So far this year, 25% of new prospects have come by way of the company’s Web site. Before the blog was launched, it was 1%, and most new clients came through word-of-mouth and referrals. Sales also are up by 18% so far this year from a year earlier, she adds.

Blogging is “worth it,” says Ms. Nazarian, “but you definitely need patience.”

Most owners use blogs — which are easy to set up and require little technical savvy — to drive people to their company Web site. But entrepreneurs also use them to get consumer feedback or answer commonly asked questions. And some blogs serve as stand-ins for Web sites as a way to describe what a business does.

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