Thinking of separating your blog from your website? Think again...
Blogging has become an essential marketing strategy in the business world. Creating your own content not only sets you apart from your competitors, but also helps your customers in a big way – giving them the best tips and tricks to solve their problems and answer their questions.
The big question for many small to mid-sized businesses has become, “where do I put my blog?” When you put your blog on an external site, your blog page URL will be a subdomain, shown as www.blog.mysite.com. Keeping your blog on your own website will keep your blog page as a subdirectory, listed as www.mysite.com/blog. Some businesses are turning to external blogging sites like Hubspot, thinking that moving the blog externally will increase reads and traffic.
However, moving your blog to an external site isn’t the best move. Besides being cheaper and easier to build and maintain a single website, keeping your blog integrated on your website can help your business in several other ways:
INCREASE YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC
Let’s say that an individual was Googling the year’s “best wedding dress trends.” Most of the time, the page that user will click on will be a blog page. If you’re a wedding dress company and that user clicks on your blog, you have a great opportunity to funnel that user to other pages on your website. If that user clicked on a blog on an external site, this funneling won’t work as well.
Backlinks from other websites to your blog will also reduce your traffic if your blog is on an external site. If you keep your own blog on your website, people who like your blog will backlink to your own website, increasing your website traffic. In short, if your blog is on an external site, you could lose out on 55% of your website visitors.
HELP OUT YOUR SEO
Google uses tactics to rank placement of pages on their search engine. You want your company pages to show up on the top of every Google search. If your company blogs are on an external site and receive a large amount of visitors, you won’t be benefitting from a high SEO – the external site will benefit instead. Your SEO analytics will also be easier to maintain with an integrated blog. If your blog is on your own site, your analytics can track all of your website pages, including your blog pages. If you move your blog to an external site, you will have to look at your blog analytics separately from your website analytics, which can be difficult to analyze and harder to figure out how your users are being funneled from your blog to your other website pages.
BETTER YOUR USER’S EXPERIENCE
Leaving your blog on your company website creates a consistent user experience for your visitors, as your blog should have the same navigation and user experience as other pages on your website. Blogs are a standard for any business site and visitors will expect to find one on your website. Your call to action at the end of your blog is also vital, and visitors will have a much easier time completing that action if they are already on your website.
POSITION YOUR BUSINESS AS A THOUGHT LEADER
Keeping your content on one site makes it easier for smaller companies to establish thought leadership and authority in their area of expertise. When users visit your website in search of a solution to a problem or answer to a question, your site should be able to help them. Putting your expertise on another site will allow your visitors to associate your expertise with the external site, meaning they’ll continue looking for knowledge and expertise on the external site, which can lead them to read your competitors’ content. Avoid this problem by putting all of your business’ content on your own website.
Overall, blogging is one of the best ways to get seen, convert leads, and make sales. Easy way to make that happen? Integrate your blog on your website. The benefits are endless!