Tweet

Blogger, WordPress, Sub-Domain, Sub-Directory, New Domain – Oh My!!

Written by: Jennifer Horowitz

Article Overview: When it comes to setting up your Blog, there are many options and it’s enough to drive you crazy. Here is some information for each option…

Blogger, WordPress, Sub-Domain, Sub-Directory, New Domain – Oh My!!

When it comes to setting up your Blog, there are many options and it’s enough to drive you crazy.

Here is some information for each option…

Blogger Versus WordPress

• WordPress offers a lot more customization and has more marketing and SEO power.
• Some people think since Google owns Blogger it gives you a boost – that is not true.
• Blogger has more rules you must follow and it could potentially limit a marketing technique or tactic.

My experience and personal opinion is that any Blog is better than no Blog but if you want to get the most out of your Blog – go WordPress.

There are other Blog platforms as well, but I consider the two main contenders to be WordPress and Blogger so that is all I have commented on.

Once you’ve decided on your Blog platform, you then have to decide on your Blog structure.

There has been a lot of debate about a Sub-Domain versus a Sub-Directory versus setting up a new domain.

A sub-domain would be: blog.yoursite.com

A sub-directory would be: yoursite.com/blog

A whole new domain would be: newdomain.com

If you go with a whole new domain, then you have no “trust” and history built up and it may take longer for the Blog to get picked up.

It used to be that a sub-domain was treated as its own separate site with a root directory so you got the benefit of link juice and you potentially got more listings in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Since December 2007, Google states this is no longer the case. So you aren’t really getting any extra link juice from this structure.

Matt Cutts, the public face of Google had this to say about sub-domains versus sub-directory (as related to the December 2007 change):

"Note that this is a pretty subtle change, and it doesn’t affect a majority of our queries. In fact, this change has been live for a couple weeks or so now and no one noticed. The only reason I talked about the subject at PubCon at all was because someone asked for my advice on subdomains vs. subdirectories."

He then goes on to say:
"My personal preference on subdomains vs. subdirectories is that I usually prefer the convenience of subdirectories for most of my content.

A subdomain can be useful to separate out content that is completely different. Google uses subdomains for distinct products such news.google.com or maps.google.com, for example.

If you’re a newer webmaster or SEO, I’d recommend using subdirectories until you start to feel pretty confident with the architecture of your site. At that point, you’ll be better equipped to make the right decision for your own site."

Although his feedback wasn’t directly related to setting up Blogs, it still applies. So, based on that feedback, and my own personal success and experience I too vote for a sub-directory.

Don’t forget, you may as well make it as search engine friendly as possible and rather than just call the sub-directory Blog (ex: yoursite.com/Blog) you could use a keyword or short keyword phrase (ex: yoursite.com/keyword-Blog or yoursite.com/keyword-phrase-Blog)

So in summary – any Blog is better than no Blog, but to get the most power from your Blog, go with a WordPress Blog in a sub-directory named with a keyword on your own server. Make sure you learn about all the necessary plugins and configure them properly to get the most out of your Blog. Hey – that sounds like a great article topic. Stay tuned!

Related Articles
  Business Blog Step 4 - Pre-Posting Decisions
  Blogging on Free Hosts not a Good Idea
  Six Quick Ways Your Website Benefits From Blogging
  Which to Choose: Blogger or WordPress?
  Three Important Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog

Article Tags: benefit, blogger, com blog, contenders, couple weeks, google, marketing, matt cutts, personal opinion, platforms, pubcon, public face, queries, root directory, search engine results, subdirectories, subdomains, subtle change, tactic



Related Forum Posts
Re: Poll: Blogger or Wordpress Blog? - I’ve tried Blogger before. Then I decided to “migrate” my blog to WordPress. But I’m still maintaining the blog at Blogger because I still can’t figure out how to add Google adsense scripts on my WordPress blog.
If You Want To Make Your Blogger or Wordpress Blog "DoFollow - If you have a Blogger blog you can delete every rel=”nofollow” code from the template code and it will make your Blog a DoFollow Blogger Blog. If you are a WordPress you can download a PlugIn by Kimmo Suominen, "WP DoFollow PlugIn". I agree that it is good to reward visitors who leave comments.
Re: how do I get started with Wordpress blog? - GoDaddy is another hosting company that works in conjunction with WordPress.org and makes set up a snap. For those of you entrepreneurs who are hesitant in setting up a WordPress blog due to time constraints or for whatever reason, I can help you with that. Setting up WordPress blogs is one of the services I provide, as well as maintaining it for you. Contact me for more information.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - Hi David - what I usually do for my blog is write a series of posts in advance and then just post-date them so that they go live automatically on the right day. It`s a build in feature in WordPress and I believe Blogger has recently added the feature in as well.
URL change - Hi The AnonymousMan, When one has a Domain Name ie URL, I understand, it is not possible to change it. One has to take out a complete new Domain. Is that correct? However, if you can change it, how can you do it? Kindest Regards, Beat "Unlock People's Potentials!"


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How To Calculate A Minimum Fee For Your Services

The Importance of Master Data Management (MDM)

9 Steps to Improve Performance

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.