I just had a client meeting where we discussed blogging, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Ning, et cetera — all things to increase their web presence — when I suddenly was able to define exactly what it is that I’ve heard from so many clients:

They want website activity without being active themselves.

I had one client in particular who was very concerned about increasing their website’s traffic, their stickiness, their activity. I made one simple suggestion: blog. “Oh, we don’t have the time for that.”

You can see the paradox.

I know many companies are hiring bloggers and social media experts and I think these are moves in the right direction but I wonder if they’re not corporatizing something that maybe shouldn’t be that corporate. Websites are easy to make look good and function well. But so often we complicate websites (usually at the client’s behest) and make them harder for clients to understand. So clients don’t get it that blogging is totally easy to do, helps their site stay active, improves their search engine ranking, and creates stickiness.