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Every day millions of people start blogging. Indeed, the best estimates show that a new blog is created every single second of every day. As if this weren't enough extra material being added to the Internet, there are of course millions of blogs already in existence. There is a vast amount of new information being added to the Internet every minute of every day.

Many people have been told that blogging helps increase your visibility on the Internet. That's true enough, but if you are in business at what cost?

Let's assume your time costs $100 an hour and that you spend a total of two hours a week adding to your blog. That's $200 a week or $10,400 a year. That's the cost of blogging to your business. You really should calculate the amount of time and its value to your business.

Once you've found out how much blogging is costing your business, you need to consider how much money it is actually making. How many people bought items or services from you as a direct result of your blog? If you don't know, you need to add tracking codes to your blog links to ensure you can work this out.

Also, add up all the advertising income or affiliate income you've generated via your blog. Then look at the total. If it is less than the cost, you're wasting time and losing money by blogging. Don't let the fashion for blogging overcome traditional business requirements of profitability. For many people blogging is actually draining their profits, but they are unaware of this because they are not measuring their blog.

Ensure you measure your blog using tracking codes so you can check the real value of your blogging efforts. To do otherwise could seriously affect the profitability of your business.

True enough, blogs can raise your visibility on the Internet and can help boost search engine rankings. But being top of the search results for a particular keyword is of no value to you in business unless being top of the page actually translates into sales. Far too many people chase search engine ranking at the expense of chasing customers.

If you are using a blog to gain search engine ranking, but have not measured the income generated as a result, you could be wasting your time by writing your blog. As ever in business, measurement is essential if you are to do your best. So don't blog hopefully; measure its real impact.