In recent years the popularity of business blogging has dramatically increased. Blogging platforms like WordPress have transformed the way small businesses approach websites and made content management systems much more accessible and easy to use.
Blogs have also opened the doors to businesses on a budget, allowing them to easily update their own website content, publish new content to their blog, interact with customers and website visitors, and generate new leads. But which is the better choice? Adding a blog to your website so they both sit on the same URL, or hosting your business blog on a separate URL?
The answer to that business blogging question isn’t as simple as you would think because there are pros and cons associated with each choice.
First, let’s review the advantages of adding a blog to your website:
- Adding a blog to your existing site is a simple process because the CSS and design of the site is already complete and just required some adaptation to integrate the blogging elements.
- The URL for your blog and all blog posts will match your main website URL (www.yourwebsite.com/blog). This not only reinforces your brand, but also helps build backlinks to your website throughout the Internet from syndication of your feed and other people sharing your content. The more backlinks that you have to your website, the better it is for your search engine rankings.
- With your blog on your website, each time you publish a new post, your website grows by one page and with each new page, you create more opportunities for your audience to find you online and connect with you.
- Integrating your blog into your website keeps things nice and simple. With this approach, you only have to maintain one website, you only have to remember one username and password to remember, and you only have one domain name to renew.
- Keeping your blog on your main website keeps your readers and website visitors focused. Your website is the heart of all of your online marketing and one of the most valuable assets you have in your business — why would you want to send people somewhere else to read your articles?
Now let’s review the advantages of creating a Stand Alone Blog:
- A stand alone blog typically uses the home page as the main blog page instead of a traditional home page. This means your home page will constantly be updated with new, fresh content, which is a bonus for your search engine optimization efforts because your home page carries the most weight in your site and is often the first page that the search engines index.
- A separate blogsite (blog) also means that you now are optimizing and developing content for two different websites, both of which may show up in the search engine results pages, giving you two listings instead of one. And, when combined with your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook page, and your Twitter profile, you can have several listings on one page of the search results.
- A separate blogsite can focus on a single topic or niche to dominate the search engine results for a specific cluster of keywords and key phrases. Because it is highly focused, it has the potential to gain authority very quickly and the links from your blogsite back to your website will increase in value as well.
There are definitely advantages to both business blogging approaches.
Creating a stand alone blogsite (or several of them) that focus on a very specific niche or keyword is a great way to quickly gain a presence in the search results for a topic you’re targeting. And, if you want to dominate a specific niche, that is a great way to do it.
But, for the typical small business and entrepreneur, adding a blog to your website is the best course of action because:
- Your blog allows you to easily publish new content your site on a regular basis, it is built to be search engine friendly, and it is simply easier (and cheaper) to manage one site instead of two!
- It is much easier and less confusing for your prospects and leads to find you, contact you, interact with you, and buy from you when you are directing them to just one website.
- You typically don’t change the sales content on your main websites pages like your about page and your services pages, so by keeping your blog as part of your main website, the static pages of your site benefit from the optimization and fresh content published on your blog.
What about you? Do you have your blog integrated into your website or is your blog separate? Which do you prefer?
