A recent analysis by Hubspot shows that companies that blog have a much higher success rate in marketing / driving traffic to their sites.

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

There is a direct impact with regards to the number of visitors to companies that blog, but what's more interesting is the exponential viral component of inbound links and indexed pages. The SEO opportunies increase massively with blogging. Companies help their positioning while blogging as it allows them to communicate with customers on a different level, while also helping them to position themselves as an authority in their related field. This has the knock effect of developing customer engagement and an increase in inbound and outbound links (which explains the above statistics).

Not only do the statistics look great, but with the change in customer behaviour since the introduction of social media, consumers are now trusting the opinions of other users over businesses. Blogs help bridge that gap with their change in corporate tone as well as encouraging users to communicate with each other (brand engagement via the network effect).

Related links:

• Study Shows Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors
• Need help with customer behaviour? Visit Sticky Panda