Website.com/blog/post vs website.com/post

[PortlandGuy]

I have clients with Wordpress sites and clients with just a Wordpress blog on the back of website. The clients with entire Wordpress sites seem to be ranking better. Do you think the URL structure could have anything to do with it? Does having that extra /blog folder decrease any SEO effectiveness?

Setting up a few new blogs now...

[PortlandGuy]

Thanks for jumping in Dan! I think that it might be a niche issue. I am just trying to rule out any technical stuff. We actually do put out white papers, ebooks, infographics, webinars, etc. on a monthly basis. The traffic has been steadily increasing through social and referral sources but organic has been a bit slower. Something like 10% unique year-over-year. It could just be due to the size of the local search market.

[evolvingSEO]

Hey PortlandGuy

First off, yes, I would put the blog in /blog if it's within a bigger website. But... what that said, I don't think these two buckets (blog VS site + blog) really have any distinction on the rankings. What works for some niches won't work for other, so adding 12 posts a month might be great for certain industries, but others maybe not. Some industries, putting out 2 or 3 really in depth and solid pieces of content (like white papers, ebook, video etc etc) could go a lot longer then a bunch of blog posts.  

-Dan

[evolvingSEO]

Hey, I saw that one.

[PortlandGuy]

No I will check it out... Thanks for the info!

[PortlandGuy]

Interesting....

So, you don't think url structure matters in terms of seo?

All three of these URL should perform just the same?

mysite.com/keyword

mysite.com/blog/category/keyword

mysite.com/blog/bid/301015/keyword

[irvingw]

As long as the path is crawlable that extra folder has absolutely no benefit or any negative effect on SEO. Keywords in folder name / URLs to not help push rank.

[Ant71]

Have you watched the mozinar the other day from Dan Shure about answers to Wordpress questions? This might help you http://moz.com/webinars/hands-on-answers-to-the-most-asked-wordpress-qestions

[joseph.chambers]

Yea - maybe the niche but you should always try to improve your CTR in webmaster tools. Whats the search impressions? Thats what makes us SEOs.. because we always ask: why is this ranking and not this.

I would go check out this: http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/reviews/buzzbundle-review-how-i-drive-traffic-to-my-blog/ - Buzz Bundle is the only tool I use for SEO. Each Product, Post, Landing Page I want to rank..

[PortlandGuy]

Thanks for the responses! I was thinking it might have small impact but not much. I prefer to set-up websites without it if at all possible.

We have been adding about 12 new posts per month to a website for just over a year now and the traffic is just not taking off. It's been sitting at ~80 visitors a day for awhile. When I look at GA I can see the blog posts are not getting a lot of impressions. Not sure what is causing it... Could just me the niche. It a local company in the Phoenix market.

When we add content like this for our other clients traffic starts to go right up...

[Saijo.George]

It would have a slight impact , but I assume its going to be very minimal as long as the overall length of the url is reasonable.

If you are setting up new one I would say go for the ones without blogs, as long as yo plan to deliver site content through wordpress. If you plan to use wordpress only as a blog for the site then throw it in a blog sub-folder.

[joseph.chambers]

If its a informational site with a blog, and you're using wordpress pages for the front of the site. It make since to have the blog its own "folder" - it makes since to filter down in google analytics because you have something to "hold on too" but I'm sure having blog in the URL does not decrease value its just how you want to structure your site.

If you wanted to send me links via PM and add me on analytics, I can take a look and let you know what I think. Have you checked WMT and see what pages people are landing on and the CTR?