Benefit of having a separate blog, to promote main site?

[steve_johnston9]

<p>I am looking to start a blog, mainly to promote my website. I have noticed that some photographers rather than, have their blog on their main website have it on a separate site like Google blog, that links from their main website. What is the point of this? My thoughts are it makes more sense to have it on your main website, as so to increase the keyword density and have regularly refreshed content to improve your Google ranking. What the benefit of having a separate blog ?</p>

[mariosforsos]

<p>I too think you should have it on your main site, but I can think of a couple of reasons why you may not want that: first, because you may want the blog to be more casual, less structured than your main site which is, after all, your window to the world. Second, because you actually WANT the blog to be a different animal altogether, maybe having a separate focus or even a distinct identity...</p>

[steve m smith]

<p>I think the main readers of blogs are the people who write them. I can't think of many people in the world who I would want to find out about on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis.</p>

<p>As such, I don't see how it can help to promote a website. </p>

 

[tonybynum]

it will do your seo better by having it on your own site you must have been doing some reading or watched

a webinair lately ay? anyhow, a blog will help seo if you do it right. remember though that it's important to

target you buying audiance. If your blogging and no one is reading, you'll get some seo improvements, but

you wont increase sales much. also, a lot of people, me included have had our blogs so long that we did

not know about seo when we started . . . another thing to consider is that your blog might not work well

unless you write about area of photography and you have people that care. one thing i get with my blog is

lots of links back to my webpage, i think links help too, so while my blog is not on my site, new pages go

up all the time with new links . . .

[norrellphotography]

<p>One reason people often have blogs elsewhere is simply ease of use. Blogspot (and others) makes it very simple to maintain a blog. I maintain my own business website and don't want to tackle hosting the blog. But there are SEO advantages both ways. While hosting your blog on your regular site you may increase keyword density, having a separate blog increases external links to your site (which may be more valuable than the modest increase in keyword density).<br>

- Greg<br>

<b>Signature URL removed. Not permitted per photo.net Terms of Use.</b></p>

[photomark]

I agree with Greg that the main reason people have separate blogs is because they don't want to deal with

the technical aspects of hosting a blog. Since most hosts now provide database access and software like

Wordpress is so easy to install and manipulate, these hurdles are much lower. Also, it is possible to run a

blog on blogger and still use your own domain name with a little DNS magic. (see: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373 ) I'm not sure what the SEO

ramifications of this are.

 

Since I started blogging my web traffic has increased exponentially. It provides continual content, which

google likes, and has a fair amount of regular readers judging from the traffic spikes when I post. It is a lot

of work to keep up with posts, but I think it helps keep my writing and editing sharp, which are valuable

skills.

[peter_cohen]

<p>Greg is spot-on in his post above. As someone who used to make a living doing SEO, it's a (current) fact that links are the #1 or #2 most important factor to Google page rank -- where your listing falls on a Google search results page. And since 85%+ of the click-throughs on a Google results page come from the first three listings, your position on the page is pretty important.</p>

<p>The matter of where you host your blog depends on much importance you place on building and maintaining a strong brand. Personally, I'd keep it all together under one domain. I use WordPress and most modern WordPress themes have blogs built right in. So my web navigation bar has a blog link and when reading my blog, visitors are looking at the same interface and navigation scheme as my site.</p>

<p>Also, hosting/controlling your own blog gives you more flexibility. Free blogs on WordPress.com or Blogger (among others) typically don't offer you the functionality that a self-hosted blog will. For example, some of the free hosts do not allow you to install as many plug-ins as you may want.</p>

<p>If you regard your blog as a slightly less formal version of your web site, then what you're doing is increasing your domain's page count and photo tags, all boosting the likelihood that somebody will find you in a search. Social media plays a role as well, with one-click posting to facebook and other sites commonplace on most blogs.</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>I have a <a href="http://www.slidescanning123.com/blog/"><strong>blog</strong></a> for my slide scanning business. Incoming links from "other" domains may help more than links from within the same domain.</p>

<p>If you can establish incoming links from other "related" sites, they will be the most helpful links. Also the words used as linking text are critical.</p>

<p>For example, I convert slides to digital but I established links from sites which provide a "digital to slides" service.</p>

<p>Other important SEO factors are: #1, page titles, html headings, bullet lists, keywords, etc.</p>

[peter_cohen]

<p>And Mr. Harrington makes a great example above of how you get links to your blog or web site from other domains. Well done!</p>

[photomark]

<p><i>And Mr. Harrington makes a great example above of how you get links to your blog or web site

from other domains. Well done!</i></p>

 

<p>It's also an example of how websites, to prevent spam, avoid giving away free google juice to people who post links. All the links added to p.net threads get rel="nofollow" attached to them which tells

Google not to use them to calculate page rank. (I don't mean to imply that J. Harrington is spamming

us)</p>

[jim_douglas1]

<p>If the point of your blog is to promote your site, the blog MUST be on your own domain--the main reason for this is the links that will come in to your blog need to be on your domain to give you credit...It doesn't really matter if the blog is "on" your main website, as long as they share the same domain.<br>

If you blog using relevant keywords in the title and body of the articles, and your articles are written about topics that your potential customers would want to read (rather than PR for your business), your blog will draw inbound links, which are approx 75% of what Google takes into account when determining where you will rank in an organic search. For all this to benefit you, the blog needs to be on your domain...<br>

Here is more on the topic: <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/46/Why-Business-Blogs-Shouldn-t-Be-on-BlogSpot-com.aspx">http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/46/Why-Business-Blogs-Shouldn-t-Be-on-BlogSpot-com.aspx</a></p>

[Ian Taylor]

<p>I keep mine on Blogspot as do a lot of photographers. Typepad is also popular and arguably better for displaying images. I just link to it from my site.</p>

[sknowles]

<p>I'll join the chorus with Greg. Some blogs, like Google's blog is easier, doesn't use up space on your Website, and expands those who find your blog and directed to your Website. I disagree with the hubspot commentary, especially about hosting your own blog and since they're just another blog Website and also recommend Wordpress. While blogspot has limitations, it's ease of use and features make it one to recommend, at least it works for me.</p>