Article section on site or blog?

[KasperGJ]

So, I've just started using MOZ since I've decided I wanna be an "expert" in SEO.
I run a couple of successful websites in Denmark and I've had some SEO guy do some SEO a few years back, but now I wanna learn this myself.

I've already read a lot of books, blogs on the subject and talked with several SEO "experts".

Anyways, I have a concrete "problem" which I need some help on deciding what to do. Its the same issue / dilemma on all my sites.

Dilemma
On my site i have a menu-section called Articles and tips. As the name implies it's basically articles and tips on subjects related to the site.
The articles are both informal for the users and I also use these to attract new users on specific keywords.
The articles are not "spam" articles or quickly made articles, the actually give good information to the users and are wellwritten and so.

I've hired a girl to create more articles, so there will be a good flow on articles, interviews and so on soon.

• Some SEO guys tells me, that I should create and use a external blog "instead" and post the articles there instead of on my site. (ex www.newsiteblog.com)
• And another SEO guy tells me that I should run a blog on my own site (ex www.ownsite.com/blog) , where I post the articles.

I have a really hard time deciding what is the best way, since I hear all kinds of ideas, and really dont know who to trust.

My own idea is, that it seems "stupid" to take content from the site and put on external blog.
Then I would also have to create a new blog, and point links from that to my site and so.

Any of you guys have any ideas?

Sorry for my bad english.

[KasperGJ]

Hi Andy,
Thanks for a very good answer. That makes sense.
Ill keep my article section and the interview section.

My current system is "simple". so it doesnt support all the features a word-press blog have and people can't comment on the articles directly on the site. That might be a problem?

In that content a sorta like blog-system would be better, but ill stick to what I have for now then.

Thanks.

KasperGJ

[Andy-Halliday]

Firstly welcome to the world of SEO, but the answer is pretty simple and I don't know why anyone who knows SEO would tell you any different.

If your site / CMS allow is, have them all on your site otherwise you are creating more work for yourself.

If the articles are on your site, the DA will pass down to the article pages. Google ranks pages based on your customer experiences, so if they have visited a blog article on your site through a long tail keyword and then want to actually purchase your services. If they type in 'x', Google will remember they have been to your site and interacted (so long as it looked like they had a good experience) Google will rank your other pages higher, potentially leading to more conversions and traffic.

Also you only have one brand to manage and not two, if someone wants to link to one of your detailed and informative blog articles then this link also passes weight back to your home page.

I would always say where possible have the blog on your main site, the only time I would suggest not to is if your current site can't support it.

Hope this is useful, I have only given the key reasons why you should put it on /blog (and it doesn't have to be called blog, you can name it anything you like, articles etc). But there are far more reasons for keeping it all on one domain.

Without knowing the company that recommend putting it on a new site I feel unfair commenting about them, but maybe they was thinking they could get you to pay for a brand new additional site and get some extra revenue for themselves - like I said I don't know them so don't like commenting about other peoples businesses if I don't know them - but that would be my only logical thinking of why they would want you to have a second site.

Thanks

Andy