What the blog is going on?
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A new client has the following domains:
- www.domain.com (on Shopify)
- www.blogdomain.com (on Squarespace)
It seems BOTH domains are using the same Google Analytics account ID. But they are essentially two different websites (as opposed to the blog being a subdomain or subfolder). I'm struggling to see what value this blog structure is adding to the ecommerce site.
Should these be set up as cross-domain tracking?
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Murray,
I'm going to agree with Chris on this one. I think migrating the blog & placing a redirect is the best solution in regards to SEO.
In regards to the customer/client's response, if I were in your situation I would re-iterate that while their concerns are relevant & likely correct, there are SEO & user flow implications that should be taken into account. If the only concern is styling, I would have a designer re-create the existing css for the 'new' blog.
As far as analytics, there needs to be cross-domain tracking setup if it is not already or it will cause issues in your data if it hasn't already. The change is rather minimal, but will need to be done to all tracking tags.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you need any more information on this!
Regards,
Trenton -
Thanks Chris,
I agree with you on this one. However, the client feels (rightly or wrongly) that the Shopify blog looks 'ugly' which is why she is continuing with the Squarespace blog.
So my plan is to use data to try and highlight the shortcomings of this strategy (ie. that it isn't generating any traffic or SEO value or conversions), then hopefully persuade her to move to domain.com/blog as you suggested.
Appreciate the response. Any further suggestions welcome!
Regards,
Murray
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Hello,
Personally, my plan for this layout would be to have the old domain, www.blogdomain.com, redirect to the new blog at www.domain.com/blog. Having the blog on your primary domain allows for new content to be added to your primary website. You want visitors on the site where they convert, instead of leaving blogdomain.com to find domain.com then convert.
It's fine to have the same analytics setup, it will probably make things easier to track as well. However, if you're marketing for both sites it would be easier to have two separate accounts.
Hope this helps.
Chris
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