E-commerce site: blog on site or link to it

[elazarus]

Hello,

I have a couple of e-commerce web sites... www.tcstraps.com and www.mariopaci.com and the traffic is good although I see some fluctuation in SERP's on Google for my keywords (wrong way fluctuation).

I also have a Blog about watches. Is there a Content SEO difference between having my Blog directly on my E-Commerce website or linking to it as it is hosted on Google Blogs.

If the SEO results would be better, I can have a page dedicated to a blog put up.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Elliot

[merlot105]

Your best bet is to create your blog on-site, and the reason I say this is very simple. Links. One of your main goals (if you're interested in building natural, organic traffic) is to draw more links to your domain. If you have a blog that is not on your domain, then any link pointing to that blog is essentially meaningless. On the other hand, having the blog on your domain will help you build your link profile of your existing domain - which is the more important goal for you, I bet. Try wordpress and using domain mapping to get a blog on your site. For instance, you will be able to call it: blog.youdomain.com and it will automatically get mapped to your wordpress account. So you get the great functionality of a wordpress blog and you get to reap the rewards of building links - if your blog content is good enough, that is.

[claybutler]

Your best bet is to create your blog on-site, and the reason I say this is very simple. Links. One of your main goals (if you're interested in building natural, organic traffic) is to draw more links to your domain. If you have a blog that is not on your domain, then any link pointing to that blog is essentially meaningless. On the other hand, having the blog on your domain will help you build your link profile of your existing domain - which is the more important goal for you, I bet. Try wordpress and using domain mapping to get a blog on your site. For instance, you will be able to call it: blog.youdomain.com and it will automatically get mapped to your wordpress account. So you get the great functionality of a wordpress blog and you get to reap the rewards of building links - if your blog content is good enough, that is.

I'll disagree on this one. I've seen no evidence about link profiles for a domain. Google thinks in pages. I run many blogs. Most are stand alones and one is a sub directory on a site. Many interlink in one way or another. The blog has not helped my rankings for my parent site one bit. Links to deeper pages help, especially from higher PR pages, but there's been no "halo" effect (ie: improved ranking for page that aren't receiving extra link juice)

I see it more as a branding and usability question than anything.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

If you have a blog that is not on your domain, then any link pointing to that blog is essentially meaningless.

Where did you get that notition?

[morestar]

You have to also consider the massive change in the link structure and the flow of pagerank throughout your website if you add a blog to it.

I'd stray from adding a blog to your current sites. If anything in your case, so far I believe, I'd go with a subdomain blog if you're serious about using it.

Also, don't use it for SEO - use it to enhance your users' experience and pleasure on your site, blog or about your products or services - be genuine, be real, be true, make your users' happy to visit your website and if need be, add links to your important pages.

You could also have the same success hosting your blog elsewhere but there's no reason not to keep it on your property. You don't want to ever chance losing all your posts, content and built up rankings because of some glitch in someone else's website!

[trade-show-oracle]

I'll disagree on this one. I've seen no evidence about link profiles for a domain. Google thinks in pages. I run many blogs. Most are stand alones and one is a sub directory on a site. Many interlink in one way or another. The blog has not helped my rankings for my parent site one bit. Links to deeper pages help, especially from higher PR pages, but there's been no "halo" effect (ie: improved ranking for page that aren't receiving extra link juice)
I see it more as a branding and usability question than anything.

Interesting... I'd always assumed that there was a "halo effect" to having a (popular) blog, but I'd have to defer to your experience.
If the blog is popular and respected, I would want it on my main site, especially if blog visitors might also be buyers. But if the blog isn't popular or of the highest quality, I probably wouldn't want it associated with my main site. Imagine if someone was at my main site and was about to buy something, and then clicked on a blog post which was poorly written, and decided to go somewhere else.
So in the end, I think it depends on the quality and purpose of the blog on where it should be.

[elazarus]

Thank you for the great input.

I have had a Blog on Google Blogspot for 5 years but never added the link to my E-Commerce sites. It's funny, today I linked the Blog to my Website just to start it off with the links and, of course, I added some more content to the Blog.

I have been showing products on Facebook and Twitter...doing all the Social "Stuff"...and the jury is still out on the value of Social Marketing. I spent A lot of money on Facebook CPC and could not track 1 order to it. On the other hand, Google CPC, Amazon CPC and also Amazon Products are good for sales and traffic. So is E-Bay.

The Blog content is also posted on a Public Forum that I have owned since 2003...the site contains discussion, Selling forums for watches and another for straps.....it gets a few 1000 hits a day. So, the Blog was just another thought to increase content to keep my Keyword SERP's high.

Elliot