Re: Blogs etc.
Hi Glen,
It's a simple case of 'all helps'.
You don't have to blog, but done in the correct manner can only improve your chances of your business/site taking off.
Creating a blog and duplicating site content is not the way to go, but talking about your services/goods, giving advice, offering tips, insights etc and linking back to your site or articles on your site will certainly help.
There are many other ways too, do some good research,, you will learn along the way, some things work, some things don't work so well, it's certainly a learning curve for us all.
Also remember what's good for one may not be good for another, so for one person to tell you what to do would by no means be enough to go on.
Research - Listen - Study - Experiment
and have fun doing it!
Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.