8 replies to this topic

[Nozmo]

Hi,

I would like to get a feeling if this is good idea and still an acceptable practice. We currently have a website and a couple outside blogs (the blogs serve different audiences). We are now contemplating a blog within our primary website. The address would be xxxx.com/blog. On the home page we would have some kind of widget or section that would have brief blog updates or leadins that of course would link to the internal blog. My questions are:

1. Is this an acceptable practice and/or even a good idea from an SEO point-of-view?
2. On the blog itself, does it make sense to use WP software to do the heavy lifting of the blog posting and editing or should I have our programmer write something custom?
3. Does the "teaser" on the home page provide any SEO benefit - I was thinking about it from a regularly updated content aspect - or is this dependent upon how the code is written?

Any insight would be appreciated.

[SelfMade]

We currently have a website and a couple outside blogs (the blogs serve different audiences). We are now contemplating a blog within our primary website.
Any insight would be appreciated.

The blog has to have a theme, you can't have a generic blog within a website because how are you going to optimize for it?

e.g I couldn't have a blog about Steam trains, sprouts and Xbox 360, simply because SEO is going to be impossible and more importantly your audience are going to be confused!

If the blog is theme centric, then ok.

WP? Forget that trash!

[Randy]

A blog is nothing more than a content delivery system. So as far as the search engines and SEO are concerned it doesn't really matter. A blog can be easier to maintain. Or it can be more difficult to maintain. Depends upon the specifics.

That's what it really comes down to. Whether a blog platform will make publishing your content simpler or not. Which has zero to do with SEO.

[SelfMade]

I read the original post as a "blog within a website" or "leading to a blog"so if he has a site about Lego and a blog about "Beansprouts" are not his visitors going to be confused??

After all in the post it states:

"We currently have a website and a couple outside blogs (the blogs serve different audiences)"

That affects SEO surely, or am I mad?

Edited by Kaz007, 15 January 2010 - 04:45 PM.

[Michael Martinez]

You can have sixteen blogs outside or inside your Website. It doesn't matter. Everything affects SEO and nothing affects SEO. It's more a matter of perspective than anything else.

That is, given a client with sixteen Websites to promote versus a client with sixteen blogs on one Website to promote, I would employ different strategies.

At the micro level SEO really just comes down to content and links. You publish the content and you link to it.

At the macro level you're dealing with how a document (or group of documents) is related to a community of similar documents. Things can be a bit fuzzier. Maybe you're talking about one domain, maybe a hundred.

And it's perfectly easy to promote a site into search visibility for 100 different topics on one blog. It's not like every post on a blog has to be about the same topic.

Take this forum, for example. It ranks very well for "SEO forum" but quite honestly you'll find few if any posts here about running a forum for SEO. This forum covers thousands of different topics. Any blog can achieve similar success with just as much content and variety.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself, "Am I overthinking this?" The best way to tell is whether you're worried about how one thing might affect your SEO. Hundreds of things affect your SEO. They all work together (or against each other) and in the end some sort of result comes out of the mix.

[SelfMade]

And it's perfectly easy to promote a site into search visibility for 100 different topics on one blog. It's not like every post on a blog has to be about the same topic.

Take this forum, for example. It ranks very well for "SEO forum" but quite honestly you'll find few if any posts here about running a forum for SEO. This forum covers thousands of different topics. Any blog can achieve similar success with just as much content and variety.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself, "Am I overthinking this?" The best way to tell is whether you're worried about how one thing might affect your SEO. Hundreds of things affect your SEO. They all work together (or against each other) and in the end some sort of result comes out of the mix.

Yeah I understand what your saying.

He/she should have clarified what they meant by this:

"(the blogs serve different audiences)"

I took that at face value meaning different blog topics all together.

The HRF, ok its an SEO forum, but obviously its a generic forum relative to webdesign and all the rest of it, but the audience doesn't really differ in my opinion.

However I believe whatever your site is about, then the blog(s) must be in sync otherwise the site and blog will be as much use as a fart in a spacesuit to the visitor!

If I am interested in steam trains why would I want to read a blog about Pork chops/cooking in general?? After all this blog could be about pork chops but could involve a hundred topics about cooking, but what's that got to do with steam trains??

As I know it...you have to optimize the site first, and yes as you say the end result is 'mix and match'

[Jill]

Kaz, you seemed to have read a whole lot more into the original post than what was said, imo.

The OP was asking nothing about the topics, but just about where (on or off the domain) the blog can or should be, and if they should use blogging software.

As to the original question, I would highly recommend using some sort of blogging software already in existence. Why reinvent the wheel when they have all the bells and whistles you already need all built in. Specifically important is the pinging feature which you may not get if you build yourself.

[CTPhil]

I've got a couple of blogs "within" websites, customized to look like the site, but just basic Google blogs. I use them for a "news and announcements" type function, it's just easier for me for that type of content. I set them up as blog.mysite.com, but I doubt that it matters. The blog pages come up right along with my regular pages in keyword searches.

[Nozmo]

Thanks for all the comments - my question was more simpler, I think. Since posting this message I have done some additional investigation and discussion. My intention is to use wordpress software (for the actual writing of posts) and create a blog within our existing website. The blog will be about topics of our business. The "look" of the blog will be created to look like our website. On the home page of website, will be a small section that will include brief summaries of the articles and stories. My goal is to keep content fresh within the website by using this technique. I am stressing that the blog posts themselves are SEO friendly.

I just want to make sure this is a good idea/good practice going forward. Also, should we consider blog software other than WP?

I hope this helps clarify this question a little bit.