This Subdomain vs subfolder issue is one of many decisions on business blogging for companies deciding on setting up a blog. If you get the decision wrong you may not take advantage of the authority of your existing domain and so your blog won't attract much traffic initially.
I've recently setup a new WordPress blog to replace my legacy blog, so I thought I'd share my experiences in case anyone passes this way.
Initially I set it up on a subdomain http://blog.davechaffey.com.
I pointed all my run-of-site nav links at this sub-domain.
I think I felt that the longer-term benefits of being on a sub-domain and pointing back to the main site might give some SEO benefits.
I used this earlier discussion on Subdomains vs subfolders for SEO to inform my decision. There's clearly no right or wrong answer.
Within 4 or 5 days i was starting to appear for long tail 5 or 6 keyword searches and within a fortnight appearing on first page for blog titles/shorter searches.
So based on that, I'd recommend subfolders is the way forward for blogs if you want to swiftly pull in visitors based on the authority of your existing domain.
That'll be obvous to many, but I wanted to trial it and that's what I've found.
When I taking my Google IQ qualification recently I thought of another benefit of the subfolder approach.
Since Google Analytics serves first-party cookies for each different domain or sub-domain, this will mean that sub-domains aren't tracked as part of an integrated whole site. But they are integrated if they are part of a subfolder.
With a subfolder as the one on this site, it's recommended that a profile is setup with an include filter for a subdirectory ^/blog/ so you can still isolate traffic for that part of site.
By Dave Chaffey
Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.
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