Is my Company Blog Causing issues?
-
We have a company blog. IE companydomain.com/blog/. Much of the content is unrelated to what we do.
So why do we do it?
-
Cover local topics that our customers may be interested in and searching for. Get them in the back door so to speak.
-
Link bait, social sharing etc
-
Develop a marketing culture that's engaged always learning.
-
Customers get to know the people behind the company.
Here's my Pickle
If i sub domain or separate the site entirely, i won't benefit from all the juice we're generating.
If i keep the status quo, since much of the content isn't directly related to my "category", logic tells me that i could be diluting my website in Googles prying eyes.
Feedback PLEASE.
-
-
It's really hard to speak in generalities, but my gut reaction is that splitting to a subdomain is going to cause you more harm than good. You'll likely fragment your links and could very well harm your root domain. If the blog was clearly harming you somehow, that would be one thing, but to do this preventively is, IMO, a very bad idea.
I'd really rather see you focus on improving the quality of the blog and better integrating it into the main site. Keep the posts you have that have solid links and traffic, but work on cleaning up the rest. Especially focus on duplicate content and any issues that may be easy wins. Meanwhile, maybe make a move toward quality-over-quantity in 2013 and reappraise how the blog fits your broader business.
-
Hello Peter,
Thanks for the feedback. I've been working on pruning for a week now. The blog is huge in terms of content compared to the main site and will only get bigger. That's my concern. There are only so many blog posts you can write about screwdrivers right?
My gut is to limit the categories we write about and focus on quality, keeping it on the same domain BUT i'm nervous about dilution.
To Subdomain or not to Subdomain....THAT is the question.
-
What kind of content volume are you talking about? It's true that more content isn't always better, and you can dilute your index, but if you've got a main site with hundreds of pages and a blog with a couple hundred pages (and that blog is attracting links that strengthen the domain), I wouldn't worry too much. If you've got a 10-page main site and a blog with 10,000 posts then, yeah, that could cause your trouble. In that case, though, I'd bet content quality is also a problem.
If you separate the blog out, you're going to lose the impact of those social shares and links. Whatever you're losing now from dilution is going to be a fraction of what you lose if you split one of your main sources of links, I strongly suspect.
If your content is spinning out of control, is there a way to prune it down? Could you drop some of your oldest or least relevant content on the blog (with no links, shares, etc.)? Could you focus on more product-relevant content moving forward? There may be some happy mediums between just splitting it off or not splitting it.
-
Hi there, looking at the very purpose behind hosting the blog on the domain itself, it is good that the blog matches the theme of the domain not going completely off the track. As you said, if you make screwdrivers and your blog talks about home improvement, its perfectly alright as you are discussing about the topic that your product is intended for or can be used for and also you are discussing about a problem or an issue that your product can address or solve.
To conclude, you do not need to worry about anything regarding the blog till you don't get distracted from the theme of your domain. Having a forum or a blog hosted on the same domain is to talk about topics that are directly or indirectly related to the theme of your domain.
Regards,
Devanur.
-
Sorry again for disagreeing. I think the blog should be on the domain – yourdomain.com/blog
_And the blog should show some characters. I mean the blog should have Google Authorship implemented and should provide enough information about the author and active participation of the author. This is not a hit and run game. You need to write content that appeals targeted audience directly. And links will automatically come to you if the content is great, however needs a marketing push from your side; no need to chase the links by creating another domain. _
-
yep, i would stick to a particular subject matter for a site and focus on it.
-
Our blog does rank well. My concern is overall subject matter. If i look at webmaster tools...screw drivers are nowhere near the top works used. I'm afraid the blog may be diluting things....but it gets links to the domain, provides good content and traffic.
-
not necessarily, if you make the page specific to that keyword/topic and provide quality info you stand a chance to rank for it. Sites like about.com , ehow and wikipedia cover different topics and rank quite well . If you do address broad keywords in your blog, depending on the competition , you will have to build links specifically to that page for that specific keyword to rank high.
A downside to this : you might confuse the visitor if they land on that page and find out that your site covers a broad range of other topics that are of no interest for them . They will bounce off your site impacting your conversion rate.
-
So you feel a subdomain or new domain would be best.
What if you make screw drivers and your blog covers topics such as home improvement, architecture, insulation, home decor, paints, fabrics.
Is that too broad?
-
My thoughts would be to separate that blog from the main site or only have related content and posts in the blog to your subject matter. If your idea is to rank high for the site related to the Genre that your site is focused on, then that blog content is not helping. You can still blog about different topics as long as they resonate with a single theme for example home improvement, home renovation, home repair etc.
If the intent of the blog is to just engage the community and spread your brand as you mentioned then it's ok but you wont really be getting any SEO benefit from the blog. Your rankings would basically be impacted with the on and off site optimization done for the site related to the keywords. If your competitor has a site ranking well and also a blog related to that topic, he should outrank you in this instance.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
MOZ is showing that I have non- indexed blog tag posts are they supposed to be nonindexed. My articles are indexed just not the blog tags that take you to other similar articles do I need to fix this or is it ok?
MOZ is showing that my blog post tags are not indexed my question is should they be indexed? my articles are indexed just not the tags that take you to posts that are similar. Do I need to fix this or not? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tyler58910 -
What is the Good URL structure for Blog posts
Please let me know what is the goood URL structure for blog posts http://www.abc.com/postname/ or http://www.abc.com/�tegory%/%postname% If Category, Can we name it Blog like website/blog/postname or it is good to use actual categories, and How many categories we can use?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Blog Content In different language not indexed - HELP PLEASE!
I have an ecommerce site in English and a blog that is in Malay language. We have started the blog 3 weeks ago with about 20-30 articles written. Ecommerce is using MAgento CMS and Blog is wordpress. URL Structure: Ecommerce: www.example.com Blog: www.example.com/blog Blog category: www.example.com/blog/category/ However, google is indexing all pages including blog category but not individual post that is in Malay language. What could be the issue here? PLEASE help me!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
What are partial urls and why this is causing a sitemap error?
Hi mozzers, I have a client that recorded 7 errors when generating Xml sitemap. One of the errors appear to be coming from partial urls and apparently I would need to exclude them from sitemap. What are they exactly and why would they cause an error in the sitemap. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Rel Next and Previous on Listing Pages of Blog
Hi, Need to know does rel next and previous is more appropriate for content based articles and not blog listings.. Like an article spread across 3 pages - there it makes sense for rel next and previous as the content of the article is in series However, for blog listing page, for pages 1, 2, 3, 4 where every page is unique as the blog has all independent listings or separate articles - does rel next and previous wont of much help Our blog - http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest&Itemid=91 This is what been said by the developer "The whole idea of adding the "next" and "previous" tag in the header is only when your single blog post has permalinks like: site.com/blog/entry/blog-post.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi
site.com/blog/entry/blog-post.html?page=1
site.com/blog/entry/blog-post.html?page=2 " The link in the head is only applicable when your content is separated into multiple pages and it doesn't actually apply on listings. If you have a single blog post that is broken down to multiple pages, this is applicable and it works similarly like rel="canonical" Can we safely ignore rel next and previous tag for this blog pagination for the listing pages !!0 -
To "Guest Blog" or "Ghost Blog"?
To "Guest Blog" or "Ghost Blog"? I've been wondering which would be better given G's "authorship" tracking program. "Onreact.Com" indirectly raised this issue in a recent blog post "Google Authorship Markup Disadvantages Everybody Ignores" as : "Google might dismiss your guest articles. Your great guest blogging campaign on dozens of other blogs might fail because Google will count the links all as one as the same author has written all the posts and linked to himself. So maybe the links won't count at all." Assuming all other things are equal, would you use "Guest Author" with G Authorship attribution (if allowed) or just ghost the article and include an in-text link without attribution to you as the author?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JustDucky1 -
Does the blog comments work?
Hi there, I have some keywords which varies difficulty from 1% -30 % . I can rank my urls with some blog comments from high pr blog pages? Is any way to rank them all fast? I am looking for the most cheap and easy way to rank them. One article of 1000 words lets say and some 200-300 blog comments are enough? Site is new, ranks for some other small keywords already.Has zero backlinks almost. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nyanainc0