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Don’t Subdomain your Blog – Issue #023

Don’t Subdomain your Blog – Issue #023

Published on February 22, 2022
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Actionable SEO Tip of the Week

A website’s blog is usually the main content hub for a business. It is the home of the content that will rank on Google and the main organic traffic driver for your website.

That means that your URL blog setup is one of the most important things you need to consider and plan for from the start.

The two most common URL blog setups are:

Subdomain: blog.domain.com

Subfolder: domain.com/blog

Both kinda look the same, but they are not

Subdomain

A blog as a subdomain seems to be one of the most popular options. Is that because it’s the best option? No, it’s because it is the easiest to setup

Most blogging platforms give you the option to use a custom subdomain and all you have to do is simply add a CNAME record to your DNS settings.

Why isn’t this the best option? Because search engines see subdomains as independent sites from the root domain.

That means that all the authority, keyword rankings, and topical relevance of your blog will not benefit your main website. It literally is like having two websites that you are trying to rank independently of each other.

Subfolder

A subfolder setup keeps everything under one roof. That means that the authority and backlink influence have a direct impact on your root domain.

This will help your website also rank other non-blog content, like service and feature pages, which are usually the ones that drive most of the conversions

If you are using something like WordPress for your marketing website, having the blog in a subfolder comes pretty much standard out-of-the-box. There’s not much you need to do other than setting up your permalinks, and you are good to go!

But if you are not using WordPress or similar CMS, then you are going to need a better alternative than using a subdomain.

Here are some of your options:

If you are a developer, create your own blog CMS and set it up in a subfolder of your root domain. It’s probably not the best and most cost-effective solution, but the option is there.

If you are not using WordPress for your marketing site, would your tech stack allow you to do a fresh WordPress install in a subfolder? That could be another option.

If you are a technical person (I’m not!), you can look into Nginx Reverse Proxy or Cloudflare Workers. This is 100% out of my league, so I won’t even pretend to tell you about it, but if you are good with technical stuff, these are two good options to consider.

Use a blogging platform that allows you to set up a blog in a subfolder. I’ll be honest, I don’t know of many that can do it, but I can recommend Superblog. It gives you the option to easily configure your blog either as a subdomain or as a subfolder.

Focusing your efforts on one domain will allow you to increase your authority, improve your rankings and get better results from your SEO strategy.

But wait!

If you already have an established blog as a subdomain, do not move it!

Having your blog in a subdomain does not mean it won’t help your SEO. It will still rank for your keywords and drive organic traffic, it just won’t have a direct impact on your main website’s SEO.

If you recently created your blog and it’s not ranking for any keywords yet, then it could be a good idea to move it to a subfolder, just make sure you create all the 301 redirects that are needed.

Are there any specific topics you want me to cover in the coming weeks? DM me on Twitter and let me know!

SaaS Showcase of the Week

You know that creating content for your blog is important for your SEO strategy. The problem is that, even when you know what topics you want to write about, getting started can sometimes be a little overwhelming, especially when staring at a blank page

Not to mention that it can also be very time-consuming!

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a tool that could help you simplify the content creation process? Well, let me tell you about this week’s SaaS showcase.

copymatic.ai

Copymatic helps you generate content and copy in seconds using AI! With a little guidance and input, it can automatically write unique, engaging and high-quality long-form blog post content in seconds.

Do you want me to showcase your SaaS or digital product? Click here to learn about our sponsorship opportunities.