Separate blog or blog on my own website?
Posted by Mark White, Blog Consultant in Blogging Basics , SEO in Blogs , Setting up a Business Blog , Small Business Blogging , Starting a Blog , Writing your Business Blog
Judging by the search terms that people use to find Better Business Blogging, a topic which seems to be a constant issue for people looking at setting up their own business blog is how and where to locate their blog. Primarily, should it be as part of their own website or should it be on a new domain?
I considered this previously in two posts which looked at the question of where to run your business blog and how to integrate a blog on your site, but I think that it is worth bringing together my thoughts and opinions on this again and developing them further.
Although it can depend on what your intentions are in terms of branding, specific aim and focus, target audience, domain name and general marketing requirements, my take on this would boil down to:
then always have it on your own website in a subdirectory.
If it clashes with your site in these respects,
then run it as a separate site on a separate domain.
While there are other elements which could have an impact on your decision making, that should be the key aspect on which you make your decision.
But – what about the Inbound Links!!
The other reason often put forward for preferring an external blog is the benefit of inbound links that you can create back to your main site – “I’ve got a blog at mynewblog.wordpress.com and I’m using it to create lots of links through to my main site at www.mymainsite.com which will help me get to no.1 in Google”.
In short, no. A more complete response, no, no, no!
Google is many things but blind in Search Engine terms isn’t one of them. Multiple links from one individual site through to another suffer from what is best described as “diminishing returns”. To explain: the first link you create from the blog you have set up as a separate domain is great and registers a, let’s say, resounding “1” on the Google link scale. The second from that blog (and hence that domain) through to your site is seen as less valuable as you have already “recommended” the site with a link. In this case, it’s given, let’s say, half the value – the next, half again and so on for all of the other links from that blog domain to your main site. Result, as you add more links from your new blog back to your main site, the additional ones quickly become worthless.
Compare that to holding the blog on your own site, taking the time to write content that people consider worth linking to and working to attract links from a number of different sites – as shown on the right above. Each of these will be fully valued and counted, as they are external links into your blog from different domains – in a very short space of time, having your blog as part of your own site and domain will have benefited your overall site more than an external blog ever would, no matter how many links with great anchor text you use. (I’m even ignoring the benefit of higher page rank here, which established blogs linking to you would have but your newly established blog would not!)
So, when faced with the decision of where to run your blog from, if it is relevant to your site and to your visitors then integrate it as part of your own website. But, if you are setting it up to primarily boost your search engine possibilities then … definitely integrate it as part of your website!
Tags: Blog, Blog on website, Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Separate blog, Setting up a, Where to run a blog
April 28th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Great advice, as always, Mark, and one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen for having a blog as part of your main web site.
I know you use WordPress, but some of your readers may use Blogger and I have produced two videos which show how to incorporate a Blogger blog within a web site, retaining the main web site’s design.
The videos can be seen at:
http://www.changingblogger.com
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm
thanks Mark. Your diagrams are really useful and hammer home the diminishing returns point you make.
I am enjoying using wordpress for a couple of new sites at the moment, so am really pleased that I am on the right track for the SEO gains! And this makes me more convinced to change my main site to incorporate my main blog for the future. I love using typepad, but it may be time to say goodbye (sniff!)
Karen
May 8th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Thanks for this, but aren’t we missing something?
An externally hosted blog could attract many links and only have one link to the main site. I can’t see how this is any different to a co-hosted blog.
After all, in cyberspace its the relationship between the entities that is important not their physical location.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Thanks for the link to your video, Graham – I have no doubt that it will prove very useful for those incorporating Blogger on their site and really help them to do it properly! Thanks again!
May 4th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Karen – glad that you are experimenting with different ways of getting the message out there from a blogging perspective. But at the end of the day, it’s the content that will make or break a site – so on that front, I would say whatever software you choose yours will be a success!
May 9th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Love the graphic demonstrating your point. It made things very clear to me and that was an issue I struggled with for quite some time with starting a blog. (Evenutally I decided to just write tutorials instead)
May 12th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
whatever helps, do it!
hehehe, thanks for this. very useful! 
June 9th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Argh, now I really want to find a way to host a blog on my store… thanks for the good advice. I’ve been searching for a good explanation on this.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Very interesting article. The graphic is great. I have had concerns about how the search engines perceive my blog since it is incorporated as a sub folder of my main site. Some directories will not list it, because they consider it a “deep link”, although many will list it separately from my main site. It is set up to put up new things quicker than I can get them done through my web developer. Also, to make them available to people that might not otherwise find the information if it where under a general topic on the main website.
Your graphic makes me feel more comfortable that I did it the correct way both for our patients and for SEO. Thanks.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:07 am
[...] There are a number of different elements which you should consider when selecting a domain name for your blog. This is of course presuming that you have decided to host it yourself (certainly recommended) and not integrate it into your current website (thoughts on this here). [...]
February 6th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Great ! I will add this to my bookmarks. TY
February 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Mark—
Hey, thanks for posting this. I’ve been going back and forth with several clients on whether they should have a standalone blog (but linked to their main site) or whether they should opt for a more integrated approach. It’s such a personal decision, and also one based on the look, feel and purpose of their main site as well that I never have an easy answer for them.
Your rule of “If it complements the content and focus of your site and appeals to your readers then always have it on your own website in a subdirectory. If it clashes with your site in these respects, then run it as a separate site on a separate domain” is a fantastic way to enable them to make the best decision for them.
That is, if they want to be a bit wacky and have their personality shine, most likely I’d recommend a standalone blog. If their blog is just a way to converse more freely about their current corporate message, goals and questions, they could easily incorporate it into the site.
Thanks for writing this, Mike.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hi,
Great post. I’ve recently taken my blog away from my main site so that I can use a more relevant URL (www.sellingatahigherlevel.com). Perhaps having read your post I should put it back again!
What’s your view re URL names. I thought by having a more relevant URL it should go to help with SEO.
Thanks,
Richard.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Hi Richard – thanks for your comment. Ref: URLs, yes absolutely they help with SEO but it is one of the 100+ factors which go into the melting pot as it were. Your domain name for your blog includes “selling” which is good and has a more independent feel as a result but it is starting from scratch now in terms of links and “reputation” ... from a Search Engine sense, I mean. Also links and attention that the blog attracts will not benefit the pages on your main site other than through the navigation link back to it.
Whether you move it back to your main site or not, make use not only of the main domain name in the URL but also the potential that “friendly permalinks” add ie. using words rather than .com/?p=33/ etc and also reverse your Title Tag descriptions which will help focus more emphasis on the contents of the individual posts.
October 25th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Helpful information, thanks.
Would your position change for any reason if your business was in a limited geography and your blog could be of interest to people in a much larger geography? Would holding it on your main site limit the traffic potential outside the main site?
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:51 am
Great post and discussion. I can’t think of another web marketing topic that is so disputed—it’s the chicken or the egg of the web marketing. Show me someone that says one thing, and I’ll show you a respectable person that says the opposite. Ultimately, it comes down to strategy. I lean towards what Heidi said above.
Patagonia.com through thecleanestline.com has separated the two, as has Southwest airlines via blogsouthwest.com
At http://SKLZ.com we chose to develop a separate blog URL at http://practiceplaywin.com We did this because we want practiceplaywin.com to evolve into a community where we can have conversations with customers in a more casual manner as compared to SKLZ.com where our tone is more core. Practiceplaywin.com gives us flexibility.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:07 am
I really enjoyed this entry. Real interesting and informative
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:56 pm
It is so refreshing to get an answer that I was looking for. Thanks Mark
March 9th, 2010 at 9:46 am
[...] White has explained it very well in his blog post here – with some excellent graphics that make it very easy to [...]
April 1st, 2010 at 3:56 am
Thanks for a very interesting discussion. I have been debating whether to (a) move my blog (currently on a Wordpress subdomain) onto my business site, (b) buy a separate domain for the blog, and shift the existing content over, or© just leave it where it is. If I decide my blog is more personal in tone, but has some posts which are a great fit with my website, can’t I just selectively republish (copy & paste, not link) the relevant posts onto my business website, so that it benefits from refreshed content, but isn’t exposed to all my blog idiosyncracies?
June 22nd, 2010 at 4:56 am
Thanks for the great advise. I was wondering what to do with my site: http://www.tothelighthousemarketing.com and had the blog set up within the site itself. I was really worried about the link building…having researched some other sites like Seth Godin’s which had their blog site separate.
Now, I’m much relieved. Thank you.
August 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Thank you Mark for all the info regarding this. I was just weighing up the pros and cons of a separate blog or putting it on the main site and I now think that I will run with a blog on the main site.
Thanks again