Is it better for SEO to have your blog live or off?

Today’s Ask an SEO question comes from Australia’s Sophia, who asked:

“Wouldn’t it be better to run a blog that links back to your company’s website for SEO, or already have an article on your website with the same information you wrote in your blog?”

Sophia, that’s a good question. From a pure SEO perspective, placing your blog in a subdirectory on your website is preferred.

That’s not to say there aren’t some valid reasons to keep blogs separate, though.

For example, sometimes it’s easier to set up a blog on one of the many blogging platforms than on the main website’s CMS. Keeping your blog separate also allows you to be more flexible in the topics you cover and the tone and tone you use.

But, as you’ve noticed, these aren’t the SEO reasons that separate blogs. Instead, they are all business-centric.

So why is it better for SEO to keep the blog on the main site? There are several reasons for this.

1. It builds a link to your main website

Backlinks are still important when it comes to getting a page to rank in search results because Links are one of many ranking factors.

If you take the time to build links, you know it’s not an easy process. However, content has been – and will continue to be – one of the best ways to attract links to a website.

You can use your blog to publish how-to guides, interviews, expert roundups, case studies, and other long-form content (read 11 Ways to Build Links Through Content Marketing more ideas).

This type of content naturally attracts links because people love to link to high-quality and value-driven content.

2. Make your blog support internal linking on your website

Internal link – meaning you are using anchor text that links to internal pages of your website – can be of great benefit.

To borrow my first reason why a blog should be on your main website: When you start attracting links to your blog posts, those posts start to build authority or fairness.

When you link from these blog posts to other pages on your website, you are sharing that benefit.

Essentially, from an SEO standpoint, you’re making other pages stronger, which means they’re likely to perform better in search.

Another non-SEO benefit of internal linking to blog posts is that you can lead your visitors down the path to conversion.

One of my clients is an e-commerce company. Their blog has become one of the main sources of organic traffic as their audience tends to search for informative content such as how-to guides.

While we keep our blog posts informative, we embed internal links to product pages to encourage visitors to click and buy.

So blogs have become a high income source and we use custom monitoring and tracking Google Analytics report.

3. It increases your chances of ranking for more keywords

Blog posts are a great opportunity to pursue long-tail and information-focused keywords.

Suppose I have an e-commerce site that sells bluetooth headsets. I’m already looking for keywords with “buy” intent in my product pages.

But what about all the questions and longer phrases associated with Bluetooth earbuds with a “know” intent? That means people are just looking for information and may not be ready to buy?

These will be harder to rank on my product pages. This is where the blog on my site can really help.

I might write a blog post to answer the question, “What are the best Bluetooth earbuds?”

If you look at the search results for this question, most are articles. So, to fight this question, I’ll write an informative blog post answering it with internal links to my product pages.

If I maintain a separate blog on my site, I can still solve the same problem, but I won’t let people buy my products on my main site.

4. Your live blog builds trust and community

Finally, having a blog as part of your main website builds trust and community. This isn’t necessarily an SEO benefit, but it does lead to engagement and repeat customers.

You want people to be familiar with the overall feel of your website, navigation, and brand experience. Encouraging visitors to come back to your blog by posting regularly will increase trust and hopefully lead to purchases or other conversions.

Keep these reasons in mind when deciding whether to incorporate blogs on the main site rather than separate sites or subdomains.

As I’ve written before, there may still be perfectly valid reasons to use an external blogging platform.Roger Montti explores some of these Should you post on your company blog or Medium.com? If you want to dig deeper.

good luck!

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