Your Blog’s Domain Name

How often have you seen a major corporation use name.wordpress.com or name.blogspot.com as a location for their blog?  There are numerous ways to structure the address for your blog such as blog.domainname.com, www.domainname.com/blog or on its own domain altogether. With so many options, you may be left wondering what impact your blogs address has overall.

To determine your best approach you must first understand the purpose of your blog.  For most companies the purpose is simple; drive more business.  Not only does fresh content keep your regular readers engaged, it ensures your site ranks well on search engines.  If your posts are carefully chosen and expertly written, you are also establishing yourself as an authority in your industry.  Ideally, your blog is a gateway that drives users to your homepage.

So how does your blogs address tie into its ability to drive business?  You essentially have two choices when selecting your blog address.  You put your blog in a directory off your main site such as www.domain.com/blog or you can locate it a different sub domain or domain like blog.domain.com or www.yourblog.com. 

If you setup your blog at a separate sub domain/domain some search engines will view your blog as a completely separate site.  This can wreak havoc on your search engine optimization strategy.  Although your blog may rank higher, your main website will be unaffected.  This can undermine your entire purpose for investing in a blog.

By using a directory as your blog address you can take advantage of the search results your blog content generates.  This approach has several other benefits for driving traffic.  Since the addresses will be similar, navigating between your main site and your blog will be more intuitive to your users.  Your main website’s URL will be in the address of your blog making it easier to locate.  This also increases the chance that a blog reader will stumble across your main website.

With all the benefits of using directories is there ever a reason to use a new sub domain/domain?  If search engine optimization is not a priority there are circumstances where this approach may be better.  A clear delineation may be best for blogs that cover slightly different content or take a different tone than the main business website.  Sub domains and domains also allow for the use of different technologies.