The Best Blog Spot

By Mikal E. Belicove|For Entrepreneur magazine|July 1, 2010

When planning a business blog, the first question is often the most difficult: What is the best domain hosting strategy?

You have three options, each with benefits and drawbacks:

Standalone domain (e.g., businessname-blog.com): A standalone domain, also known as a top level domain, is separate from your business’s website domain. That can often be a good thing because:

  • The blog extends your brand through a separate domain.
  • Once indexed, the blog provides a unique search result for your business.
  • Quality back links from your blog to your business website may raise the website’s search engine ranking.
  • Including a city or state in the domain name, such as www.your-town-gardening.com, might help generate local search results.

Hosting your blog on a separate domain may seem ideal, but it does have drawbacks: Maintaining separate sites requires more time and effort, and any inconsistencies between the two sites could cause brand confusion. Also, the new blog must build its own search engine authority starting from scratch.

Subdomain (e.g., blog.businessname.com): Like a standalone domain, a subdomain is…

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