Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

I can't think of any advantage to having the blog separate from the website, and I can think of a few advantages for having them be on the same website.

Maybe I don't understand the question or what you plan to do with our responses.

As with many issues in marketing, there is no perfect solution. Some considerations:

- SEO: if you want to use your blog to drive traffic to your website, an integrated solution appears best. You'll get all blog traffic on your home domain, not just the click-throughs.

- Complexity: if your corporate site has already a content management system, it's easy to add a blog. This is just another content type. Two websites would be more complexes. But if your corporate website is still static, it may actually be simpler to set-up the blog separately.

- Branding: a blog on your website is an integral part of your brand. If you want to experiment, or unsure about the blog, detach it slightly from your brand. Give it a slightly different look and feel, a url such as blog.widgetinc.com, a name such as Widget Inc's blog and a separate site. However, if you feel your a strong, knowledge-based organisation, be bold and go for the integrated solution.

- Community: if you want to reach your customers with your blog, you'd want a common login between your website and blog. Note that setting up a community site is very very hard, and most blogs do not go further than receiving the occasional comment. If you want to go this route, you probably need the integrated route, and be ready to spend major effort to animate, moderate, maintain and promote the site.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

The "generic" name idea is to anonymously control the conversation around your brand. However, people aren't fooled, and will quickly determine that the "generic" one is just a placeholder for the "brand".

I have weighed pros and cons of this many times and ultimately have decided that in most cases, the blog is best served as part of or sub-domain of the existing site. While an independent blog can create credible back-links and may feel more "authentic" separate from the corporate site, the seo benefit to your site having the blog on there is far greater and there are ways of treating the design to feel integrated, yet authentic.

While I don't know your industry, in most cases, I would recommend that even though the blog resides on the site - that it can serve as a stand alone blog as well. If people bookmark and reference your blog often or find your blog from google search, the landing page they view (blog home page) would make sense - even if they hadn't visited your company site before. The design should be integrated with your overall brand and site, but can be an extended version - little less sterile and more friendly and human. You may or may not carry over all your site navigation, but be sure there's an easy way to get back to your website from the blog.

Hope this helps!
Claire

Dear Shrinivas,

The line between blogs and websites is slowly being erased as most companies try and make their corporate sites more engaging and interactive.

I agree with my colleagues above that there is no discernible advantage to having your blog separate, other than if its going to be used to test radical theories which might not always be in line with your current brand image.

I would go with having the blog as a subdomain of the website so its easier to bookmark and remember for subscribers.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Clive Fernandes
Clive Fernandes Consulting