Websites and Blogs and Subdomains. Oh My! Which Blog Setup Is Right for You?

In last week’s article, “7 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog–Even if You Hate Writing” I spelled out the benefits of business blogging. Now let’s make sure that your blog is properly set up to generate high-ranking SEO results and active visitor response.  

Last week I mentioned that there are two main ways to set up a blog:

(1) Your blog is part of your business website, or

(2) your blog is a completely independent website using WordPress or other blogging platform.

There is also a third way:

(3) set up your blog as a subdomain of your business website.

I promised to discuss this subject next week, and it’s already one week later. Time flies when you’re blogging. So here goes!

To make this discussion easy to follow, let’s assign domain names for the three different blog setups.

• (1) This blog is technically part of your company website; it is a subfolder/subdirectory. The domain name is MyBusinessWebsite.com/MyConnectedBlog
• (2) The freestanding, independent business blog has a domain name of MyFreestandingBlog.com.
• (3) The blog that is a subdomain of your company website has a domain name of MyBlog.MyBusinessWebsite.com.

For most businesses, the optimal way to set up a business blog is to make it part of your business website (as a subfolder), as in domain name #1.

Blogs that are part of your business website, MyBusinessWebsite.com/MyConnectedBlog, will boost SEO ranking for your website and improve the visitor’s experience. They are easily accessed via your company website’s navigation menu.

Here are the reasons to have your blog as a subfolder on your website.

1.Blogs are great places for keywords.

Blog content is a perfect place for your targeted keywords. The search engines will enjoy seeing the keywords in your thoughtful and informative blog posts and will give you credit for them.  

And think about this for a moment.  It’s been reported by HubSpot that companies who blog get up to 55% more visitors through links. Imagine if these visitors never even landed on your business site but on MyFreestandingBlog.com instead. What a lost opportunity for your business to build its brand and connect with prospects.

2. Backlinks to your blog will boost website ranking.

If another website links back to your blog post creating a backlink/inbound link, it will improve your business website’s SEO results. Since the blog is technically part of your website, any SEO benefits derived from the backlink will be applied to your company website’s ranking.  If you have a free-standing blog, a backlink to it may help your blog’s SEO results but will not benefit your business website at all.

Backlinks are important in the world of search engines; they can increase traffic to your site, improve search engine ranking, and help build credibility. Google’s criteria for helpful backlinks is constantly changing. Some say the importance of backlinks to SEO processing is diminishing in 2020, but they are still considered to be important.

3. Blogs keep the search engines happy!

Search engines like to see that websites are updated with fresh content; they don’t like it when websites get stale and have no new pages or content. Adding blog posts will keep the search engines humming and will improve your business website’s SEO ranking.

On the other hand, if your blog website is MyFressStandingBlog.com, adding fresh content will help the SEO for your freestanding blog, but have no impact on your company website.

4. Having a blog on your company site can help position you as a thought leader.

Your website visitors will have easy access to your engaging and helpful blog and will be more likely to visit it.

5. A subfolder website is more effective in building your brand.

If your blog readers are at MyBusinessWebsite.com/MyConnectedBlog they are likely to link to other parts of your business website. All they need to do is go to the menu navigation link. Once on your website, they can learn all about your company and services, and possibly even respond to a call to action. This creates a better user experience – like one-stop-shopping.

When blog readers are at MyFressStandingBlog.com, they are less likely to visit your business website and will never learn about all the great information and offers that are waiting for them.

6. Today’s web readers expect companies to have blogs on their website.

If visitors are at your company website and go to look for your blog but can’t find it (because it is freestanding or doesn’t even exist) they may be disappointed; they may even think your company doesn’t want to connect with them. Of course, this probably isn’t true, but the impression will register, nonetheless.

7. Building and maintaining two different sites, one for your business and one for your blog, is much more expensive and time consuming than having one comprehensive website.

If you are paying to get online readers to your website you will have to double your efforts to get people to your blog, as well.

In fact, any marketing effort will need to be doubled if you want to duplicate the results you would enjoy from having the blog as a subfolder on your site. You may even end up competing against yourself for click-throughs!

When is it beneficial to have your blog set up as a separate website?

• – You do not want the blog to be associated with your business. Perhaps you want to express ideas that don’t fit the company’s brand.
• – The blog is not connected with your brand.
• – The blog is not being used to enhance your company’s brand, and you want to have a larger scope of topics than those that affect your business.
• – You want the blog to make money; you plan to sell it in the future.
• – You are thinking of selling your business but still want to protect ownership of the blog.

One last thought about the MyFreestandingBlog.com setup

You can develop a blog site with its own freestanding domain, but make sure you link to it from the menu on your business website. This will not give you SEO benefits, but your user experience will be better. For example, you can set up your own blog on WordPress and have your webmaster add it to your company’s navigation menu. This is a low-cost way to enhance your client’s/customer’s website experience.

Now let’s talk about the third way to set up your blog; the blog can be put on your website, but as a subdomain.

If the blog is part of the original domain name, but is set up as a subdomain, the blog address will be MyBlog.MyBusinessWebsite.com. Sometimes blogs are set up like this for a reason, but possible search engine consequences need to be considered.

There can be other technical advantages to using a subdomain, which your webmaster can talk to you about..

I don’t want to get too technical here, but this is an important point you should discuss with your webmaster if a blog is being added to your website. Here’s the reason why:

There has been much discussion as to how Google treats subdomains in terms of SEO. Some say subdomains are treated as entirely separate websites and others say that is not the case. This excellent post goes into this controversy in depth.

A subdomain can be preferable when you want to distinguish a part of your site as separate from your main website. For example, a subdomain is best used for a “customer service” section, or a “member’s only” section such as CustomerService.MyBusinessWebsite.com. or MembersOnly.MyBusinessWebsite.com.

What all blogs have in common, regardless of structure, is that it’s vital to contribute to them on a regular basis.

People will visit your blog periodically looking for fresh content and will be disappointed if they don’t find it. Additionally, it is the excellent blog content that will fuel top SEO results.

If blog writing simply is not for you, contact me. I will write fresh and engaging blog content so you can enjoy all the benefits a blog can bring. I enjoy blogging and helping businesses connect!

If you already have a business blog, how many times a month do you blog? And, how has it helped your business?

Laura Elton is now a full-time freelance content writer specializing in website content, articles, and blog posts. While she has always respected technology, her number one professional passion has always been writing. Previously, as owner of Laura Elton Marketing & Web Design, Laura developed websites using HTML and CSS and wrote great content. Reach her at laura@lefreelancewriter.com or visit her at LinkedIn. Join her mailing list for tips on writing and web development, and complete blog posts.