Ever started up a blog or news section for your online business, but gave up due to lack of time? You certainly wouldn’t be the first, but that abandoned section could negatively impact on your sales.

Many small business owners start up blogs or create industry news sections as an experiment in attracting visitors to their site. The problem is that a blog can be a big commitment; carving precious time out of an already overloaded work schedule. When this happens, often the old blog or news items snippets might remain very visible.

Imagine yourself being a potential customer visiting a site for the first time. You see under “latest news”, the last entry is November 2005. What does that make you think about the site and company? To me, it throws up a red flag. Is the company still in operation? Why are they leaving old news up? Is the product not being developed any more?

It can be enough to turn cautious people away. If you decide to ditch your blog, but still want to keep it live; link to it discreetly. Also add an item to say that the section is no longer being updated and why. Make it a positive - “we’re so busy with maintaining quality service for our clients, the blog has taken a back seat for a while so we can focus on what’s important - our customers”

In this age of fly-by-night operations, scams and fraud, there’s so many little things that can make a potential buyer turn tail - pick up some more tips for reassuring your site visitors.