The Benefits Of Having Your Blog On Your Website

For most savvy businesses, regular blogging is an essential part of their overall marketing strategy and a great way to engage customers. Without it, websites can become static and struggle to keep up with Google’s preference for fresh, updated content.

There are several ways you can set up a blog:

• As part of your site domain (www.mysite.com/blog).
• As a subdomain (www.blog.mysite.com).
• Or as a separate entity altogether (www.xxxblog.com).

While linking to an external blog from your main site is possible, having everything on the same domain provides some distinct advantages that can benefit your business.

The Benefits of Having Your Blog On Your Website

1. Avoid Competing Domains By separating your blog and main site across two domains (or even a subdomain), you are essentially setting them up as competitors. In SEO terms, these are considered separate entities. Keeping them connected under the same domain (e.g. www.mysite.com/blog) consolidates your SEO efforts and adds value to your site as a whole.
2. Inbound Links and SEO Value In the early days of SEO, it was thought beneficial to separate blogs to generate inbound links, thus boosting search rankings. However, this strategy no longer works as effectively. Google is now more critical of artificial link-building tactics and if most of your links are coming from the same external site, you may face penalties that lower your search engine ranking. By integrating your blog within your main domain, you can optimise internal linking, which Google favours.
3. Better Conversion Potential Having a blog on your main site is more effective for converting readers into customers. When visitors engage with your blog content, they’re already on your main site, making it easier for them to explore your services or products. It also ensures that your branding remains consistent throughout the entire user experience.
4. Easier Site Management Maintaining a blog on the same domain as your main site is more practical in terms of managing brand identity and site maintenance. You only need to oversee one website, which simplifies updates, security and design consistency.
5. Improved SEO with Fresh Content Search engines love fresh, relevant content and a blog is a natural way to provide this. If your core website is relatively static — perhaps featuring service pages that don’t change often — the regularly updated content from a blog gives search engines a reason to revisit your site more frequently, which can improve your overall SEO performance.

When Should You Consider an External Blog?

There may be legitimate reasons for hosting a blog externally. For instance, you might create content that doesn’t align with your main brand, or you might want to establish yourself as an industry expert separate from your business. In these cases, an external blog could make sense, but it’s important to weigh the potential benefits against the challenges, such as the SEO dilution and added effort to maintain a second website.

The Benefits Of Having Your Blog On Your Website

In most cases, your blog should be hosted on your main domain (e.g. www.mysite.com/blog) to maximise SEO value, enhance brand consistency and streamline site management. By doing so, you’ll also make the most of your blog’s potential to engage visitors and convert them into customers.