this is the point I'm making, are blogs worth the effort or would it be better to put our online efforts into more productive activities
I would say it is worth the effort if you are able to do it.
Many people visiting your site have a problem. If you can address that problem in an article then there is a good chance that the visitor who has seen the article will have confidence in you because you know what your on about and it's a sure bet you'v converted the visitor.
However, many people don't go as far as visiting your blog. On occasion when I've gone out to do a quote, they may ask a question regarding lets say, removing elephant droppings from carpet. You then say, did you see the article on my web site how I remove elephant droppings from carpet. They then regard you as an expert who is good at problem solving and in all probabilty they won't look else where.
I wrote an article which took me about 4 hours to do some time ago about stains. Within a few days a lady visited my site who had many problems with certain stains related to the article. She told me on the phone that she had read the article or blog and could I come over and do an estimate and give her advice. I got the job in a large home which was sucsessfull and she recommended me to her friend.
So those few hours in a day off sort of paid for it's self times over. The way I see it, is just being credible and dropping breadcrumbs however small can generate things unexpectedly sometimes.
But it's not all about blogging....it's how you present yourself generally on your web site that matters is what I find.
Mike you sound like you know what you are on about & write intelligently, I would guess your blog is good, and still only 2 people have linked to it in nearly a year.
I think to achieve 2 links to one article is not bad amongst millions of web sites.
I would't regard myself as intelligent, I left school when I was 15 with no qualifications.
With writing.....it just seems to come to me. I'm far from perfect and often have to use a spell checker although at 11 I was the best in school at spelling and it seems to have eluded me ever since!