Today there is so much focus on social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare, that is easy for companies to forget about the single most important social media tool available: their blog.  As a matter of fact, for companies who are looking to increase their search engine optimization efforts, a well-crafted blog can make a HUGE impact!

To validate this, HubSpot released a study last summer showing some dramatic search related differences for companies including blogs as part of their content strategy. Their data shows small business who blog have an average of 97% more inbound links, 434% more indexed pages and 55% more visitors.

These numbers all pretty much lead to one conclusion, you should be blogging! With the added links combined with flush and freshly indexed pages leads to higher ranking for more KEY WORD TERMS, in turn, leads to higher visitor traffic.

But what is it that Search Engines love so much about blogs? Jennifer Laycock at Search Engine Guide brought to light some important points that we shouldn’t forget about when we think of our blog. Let’s take a look at seven key factors that help blogs outperform the average business site when it comes to delivering organic search traffic.

Reason #1: Link Building Speed

One of the most important aspect of blogs when it comes to search engine optimization is the speed with which you can build inbound links. This is on account of  blogs being  populated with the type of content people are willing to link to. It doesn’t matter if they are passing it on to colleges on Linked In, retweeting a great How-to guide or linking with added commentary from another blog, a good blog will rarely lack inbound links.

A business site will have a far more difficult time attracting inbound links. once the directories have been exhausted, acquiring new links can be allot of hard work.

Reasons # 2: Depth of Links

A second strong benefit to blogs is the distribution of  links to different pages on the site. When it comes to business websites, the greats majority of links will point to the primary URL. With blogs, most of the links point directly to the post being mentioned or shared. This distributes links deeply and widely across the site lending more credibility to each page thus making it easier for individual pages to rank.

Reasons# 3: Outbound links

If you are trying to establish your site as a resource or value in the eyes of search engines and visitors, outbound links will play a major role. Blogs tend to link freely to additional resources, information and sites. Business websites tend to restrict their outbound links due to concerns about sending their potential customers away from their site.

The ability to link freely to other sites is key to establishing the blog as a true resource and generating inbound links in the future.

Reasons #4: Key Word Potential

There is a limit to how many pages of content you can add to a corporate site before you begin to overwhelm the visitor and detract for the conversion process. For many sites, this also means limiting the number of Keywords and phrases you can properly target.

Blogs offer far more freedom in terms of ability to add new content with a slight variation in focus in order to target more keywords. Blogs can provide opportunity to target potential customers throughout the keyword research cycle by offering an ideal setting to educate, guide and answer questions.

Reason #5: Fresh Content

One of the biggest differences between blogs and standard websites in the eyes of search engines is the freshness of content. Blogs tend to be updated weekly or daily while corporate sites tend to stay stagnate.

We should know by now that frequent content additions lead to frequent visits by search engines and deeper crawls by search robots or spiders. Integrating your blog into your primary domain can help increase the frequency and depth of spidering of the corporate side of your site as well.

Reason #6:Credibility

One of the keys to understanding the search buying cycle is realizing that early in the cycle people are looking for information instead of a sales message. Since corporate sites tend to be very conversion driven, there is a limit as to how comfortable a consumer feels about learning about their potential purchase in that type of environment.

This a major tool that makes blogs so powerful in terms of search traffic. Blogs allow you to gain rankings for a wide range of phrases found early in the buying cycle and offers multiple opportunities to connect and build credibility with your target audience. This increases the chances they will either link over to your site, bookmark you for future purposes or simply recall your brand when they move forward through the buying cycle.

Reason #7: Personality of the Company

The larger the business, the better the chance its customers view it as simply another nameless, faceless, profit driven company. The smaller the business, the better chance it’s customers will feel it lacks credibility, capability and accountability. These challenges can be difficult to overcome when your site is focused on conversion.

Adding a blog into your marketing ammunition allows large companies to seem a little smaller by adding a personality to the mix. At the same time , blogs allow smaller companies to look more personable, which can also enable them to build credibility and a one-on-one connection with their customer.

Time to BOOST YOUR SEO by getting back to your blog.

Talk to your SEO adviser and find out what types of search terms and phrases you should be targeting to expand your listings in search engines. Work with them to put together some content plans for you blog. Your rankings will thank you for it.