Setting Up Your Business Blog - Subdirectory, Subdomain, or Different Domain Name
This article assumes that you have decided to start blogging for business and that you have decided to host your blog rather than use a hosted blog service
( see earlier articles if these two topics are new to you:
Increase Exposure for Your Business: Start a Blog
How to set up your blog for your business )
Once you have decided that blogging for business is an appropriate approach for your business, and you have decided that hosting your own blog is what you want . . . the next consideration to take into account is what URI to use for your blog.
That is, will your blog be hosted via a subdirectory on a hosting account and domain name you currently have hosted; or will it be hosted on a subdomain related to the domain you currently have hosted; or will it be hosted on a completely different domain name . . . . and maybe even on a completely different server and/or host provider?
Your eyes might already be rolling . . . . Admittedly, this is rather technical information to make your decision upon.
So let’s start with the differences between these variations in general first, and then apply this understanding to what to do with your blog.
First of all, you probably already have a website for your business ( we’re rather assuming you do have ) — for the sake of illustration, let’s call it MyDomain.com.
There are two things you can do here in relation to your already existing domain name and website hosted under this domain name:
- You could host your blog as a subdirectory of your existing website. For example, www.MyDomain.com/MyBlog. This approach is very simple, as a subdirectory is really nothing more than a folder in your web root directory and a URI that references that folder. You probably have quite a number of subdirectories on our existing website already. This is really not much different at all.
- You could host your blog as a subdomain of your existing domain. For example, MyBlog.MyDomain.com. This approach is just a little more complex. For one thing, your subdomain could actually have its DNS zone records point at a completely different server or host provider. That is a potentially interesting option, but in this article, we are just going to focus on this option vis a vis your currently hosted web site.A subdomain on your currently hosted website is really just another folder ( like a subdirectory is ) but with its own DNS zone records. That is, with a subdomain, what is in your web root’s /MyBlog/ folder is handled as if it were its own domain, namely MyBlog.Mydomain.com.
- You could host your blog as a separate domain entirely. For example, MyBlogDomain.com or to make this illustration even more clear, SomeCompletelyDiffrentDomainName.com — get the picture? It’s a completely different domain name.Typically, this means you will also have a completely different hosting location for this site, whether it’s on the same server or hosting provider as your main website or a completely different host altogether.
Of these three options, how do you decide which is best for you?
Admittedly, the real answers are going to depend upon your current web host provider — at least for the first two options above; the third option is really pretty wide open, but there are branding considerations, etc. to consider.
Let’s look at a brief cost/benefit analysis and other considerations on each of these options.
Subdirectory
This is by far the most simple approach. Nothing is really much different than what you are already currently doing with your website, know it or not. Your blog is simply set up in a folder of your web root. It is not isolated from your main website in any way ( which, frankly can be both good AND bad, but that’s more advanced than we will address in this article ).
From a maintenance perspective, this is very easy to manage ( frankly, you’ll manage 90-100% of your blog from a web-based interface anyway ). And from a hosting perspective, it’s just part of your website; nothing special here either.
But here is the most important consideration: From a Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing perspective, your blog would be part of your main website. Now that is value natural; it’s neither “good” nor “bad”; it just depends on what you want to accomplish through your blog.
For example, if what you are trying to accomplish is to build up content on your existing site, then this is a good way to do it. You will build, over time, content in various “regions” of your site that will build information and authority on the topics you address on your site, all the while preserving your brand and site identity — at the end of the day, it’s ALL YOUR website here.
Subdomain
This approach is also pretty simple. Most things are not much different than what your are already currently doing with your website. Your blog files will still reside within a folder of your web root, but your blog will NOT resolve this way in a browser — it will be essentially another website. That is, unlike the subdirectory option, your blog would not be located at www.MyDomain.com/MyBlog/, but rather MyBlog.MyDomain.com.
From a maintenance perspective, this is equally easy to manage, and from a hosting perspective, it should still just be part of your website — though with special DNS zone records configured.
The important consideration here from a Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing perspective here, though, is that search engines will consider this a different website.
So, if what you are trying to accomplish here is to build up content in your subject areas while also building an “authority” location for your subjects which link back to your main web site, then this is the way to go — assuming you also want to preserve your branding via URI’s. That is, you are more concerned about linking back to your main website for that relevance than you are about building up content relevancy on your main website.
Another point we might venture here is that you might want to keep your content on your main website within a certain scope while utilizing your blog to expand that scope of content. That is, you might not want to be constantly adding new pages to your main website while at the same time you want to take advantage of the flexibility of blogging to expand your content on “another website” you control that is linking back to the content on your main website.
A Completely Different Domain
From the most simple perspective, hosting your blog under a completely different domain name has many of the advantages of both of the above options . . . . but at the cost of losing your branding.
With this approach, you have a completely different domain name — in no way related to the DNS of your main website; it’s just completely different. This means you can easily host it anywhere either with your current web host provider or with any other web host provider. It’s just a completely different website.
From a maintenance perspective, you are simply managing another site altogether.
From a Search Engine Optimization or Internet Marketing perspective, it is again a completely different website and has all of the benefits of the Subdomain option.
Take away:
When choosing how to reference and host your blog — via subdirectory, subdomain, or completely different domain, you have choices. You also have considerations to take into account, and these considerations will have an impact on what you are trying to accomplish with your blog.
We hope this discussion will help you make your decision, but if you want to know more, please contact us or request a quote.