Is blogging worth it for a small business?

Often not, if blogging means writing articles because someone said you should, and waiting for Google. Sometimes yes, for a particular kind of business with a particular kind of customer. The difference is specific, and it is worth working out before you spend a single evening writing.

Our interest, stated first. We sell content strategy: a content plan and first briefs for £2,500. So the answer that suits us is yes. We have tried to argue the other side as hard as the evidence allows, and the evidence is mostly on the other side.

The case against

Most pages get no search traffic at all. Ahrefs, which sells SEO software and so has its own interest in the subject, studied the roughly 14 billion pages in one of its indexes and reported in 2023 that "96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits" (Ahrefs, search traffic study). That covers every kind of page, not just small business blogs, but it is a sober starting point: publishing something and being found are different things.

Fewer marketers say it works, and more cannot tell. Orbit Media, a content agency, surveys over a thousand content marketers every year. In its 2026 survey of 1,042, only 13.9% said their blog delivers strong results, the lowest in the survey's history, and 18% said they did not know whether it delivered results at all (Orbit Media, blogging statistics 2026). These are content marketers by trade, the people most inclined to say yes.

AI summaries are taking the clicks that general articles used to get. When Google shows an AI summary, people click far less. Pew Research Center, tracking 900 US adults in March 2025, found people clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits with a summary against 15% without one (Pew Research Center). The questions a summary answers well are exactly the general how-to questions most small business blogs are written about. We looked at the wider picture in is SEO dead now that everyone uses AI?

It costs more time than it looks. The same Orbit survey put the average time to write one post at 3 hours 20 minutes. As an illustration: one post a week at that pace is about 170 hours a year, and that is for people who write for a living.

Six cases where it is not worth it

Not token exceptions. For each of these, we would tell a client not to start a blog.

1. Your customers search for you, not for information. Someone with a burst pipe searches "emergency plumber near me" and rings the first number they trust. They do not read articles. For locksmiths, plumbers, taxis, takeaways and most urgent local services, the work is in your Google Business Profile, your reviews and a clear service page.
2. You already know every buyer by name. If your market is thirty companies, or a handful of planners, or the buyers of one kind of specialist equipment, the time is better spent talking to them. Write something only if it is something you will send them.
3. What you would write is what everyone writes. "Five tips for a tidy garden" has been written thousands of times, and an AI summary will answer it before anyone reaches you. Google's own guidance asks site owners: "Are you producing lots of content on many different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?" (Google, creating helpful content) If the honest answer is yes, stop.
4. Nobody will keep it going for a year. Search results take months to settle (we set out the timescales in how long does SEO take?), and a few posts written in a burst of enthusiasm and then abandoned rarely get the chance. If no one owns it, it will not happen.
5. Your website does not turn the visitors you already have into enquiries. More traffic to a page that loses people is money spent on a leaking bucket. Fix the pages that sell first; the usual problems are in homepage mistakes that cost enquiries.
6. You need enquiries this month. Content is slow. If cash flow depends on work in the next few weeks, past customers, your Business Profile and, if the sums work, paid search are faster.

When it is worth it

• Your customers research before they buy. A kitchen, a solicitor, a wedding venue, a care home, a garden design: people read before they pick up the phone, and a clear answer from you is a reason to pick yours.
• You know things first-hand that nobody else writes down. Google asks whether content "clearly demonstrate[s] first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge". A structural engineer explaining what a crack in a particular kind of Victorian wall means is not competing with generic advice.
• Customers ask you the same questions every week. Write each answer once, properly, and it works as sales material, an email reply and a page people can find.
• You can sustain one good piece a month. Consistency beats volume. Twelve useful pages in a year beat fifty thin ones.
• The writing does double duty. If a piece is something you would send to a prospect anyway, any search traffic comes on top.

Often the better answer is not a blog

What most small businesses need is a handful of pages that answer what customers actually ask, rather than a stream of dated posts: what you do, what it costs, how it works, what to expect, and the questions that come up every week. Some of those can live in a blog; most belong on your service pages. Our guide to content strategy on a small team covers how to choose and brief them.

Our own record

Most of the articles on this site are recent, and it is too early for us to show that they bring in work. We will not claim they do. What we can say is that each one answers a question customers ask us, and that we would rather have ten pieces like that than a hundred written to a schedule.

Where the evidence is thin

• No study of small business blogs. Ahrefs measures all pages in its index; Orbit surveys content marketers, most of them at larger organisations. We found no study of whether blogging pays for small UK businesses in particular.
• The surveys are self-reported, and the surveyors have an interest. Orbit Media sells content services, as we do, and "strong results" is each respondent's own judgement.
• Clicks data is American. The Pew figures come from 900 US adults in March 2025. We found no equivalent UK study.

The verdict

Not worth it for many small businesses, if it means a blog for its own sake. Worth it where customers research carefully, where you have first-hand knowledge to share, and where someone will keep it going for a year. If you are in one of the six cases above, spend the hours elsewhere. If you are not, and you want a plan for what to write and in what order, that is what our content plan and first briefs is for.