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Picture this: You’ve invested countless hours crafting compelling content for your blog, aiming to increase your traffic and leads. But suddenly, a question looms over your head: Does having your blog on a subdomain impact your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts? Will it hinder your chances of ranking high on search engine result pages?
In this article, you’ll find out whether a blog on a subdomain impacts your SEO and whether your blog should be on a subdomain.
Understanding Subdomains and SEO
Before we delve into the impact of subdomains on SEO, let’s clarify what exactly a subdomain is. In the context of website structure, a subdomain is a prefix that appears before the main domain name, typically separated by a dot. For example, blog.example.com uses “blog” as the subdomain. An example of this is www.hubspot.com (main domain) and https://blog.hubspot.com/ (subdomain for blog).
Subdomains function as a way to create separate sections or subdivisions within a domain. They provide a means to organise and categorise different types of content, such as blogs, forums, or e-commerce stores, while still maintaining a connection to the main website.
From a structural standpoint, subdomains enable businesses to create distinct web properties that have their own unique characteristics, branding, and content. They act as standalone entities within the overarching domain, allowing for independent management and customisation.
By allocating specific subdomains for different purposes, businesses can streamline their website’s architecture and improve user experience. For instance, a subdomain like blog.example.com separates the blog content from the main website’s pages, creating a dedicated space for engaging articles, insights, and thought leadership.
It’s important to note that subdomains are considered distinct from subdirectories (e.g., example.com/blog), which are subfolders within the main domain. An example of a subdirectory is https://www.redpandas.com.au/resources/ as you can see below.
The choice between using a subdomain or a subdirectory for your blog has implications for SEO and requires careful consideration based on your specific goals and website structure.
Does Having Your Blog on a Subdomain Affect SEO?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is, it depends.
Having a blog on your subdomain does have the potential to negatively affect your SEO, but the extent to which it does depends on a variety of factors.
Let’s take a look at some of these factors.
Keyword Relevance & Search Rankings
Search engines treat subdomains as separate entities from the main domain. This means that while subdomains still have some connection to the main domain, the SEO efforts you put into the main domain may not directly benefit the subdomain, and vice versa.
This means that you’ll have to focus on optimising two websites (your main domain and your subdomain) in order to maintain keyword relevance and high search rankings. If you put more effort into your main domain, your subdomain will end up suffering, and vice versa. On top of this, search engines may prioritise your main domain over your subdomain when ranking content.
But if you’re willing to make the investment to work on SEO across two sites, then this shouldn’t be a problem for you.
Backlinks
Subdomains have independent backlink profiles, which essentially means that any links which point to your main domain and help boost its SEO will not help improve the SEO of your subdomain. In other words, the benefits of a good backlink strategy to your main domain does not pass over to your subdomain.
This means that you’ll need a backlink strategy for your subdomain and your main domain – that’s double the work.
In this sense, while SEO isn’t negatively impacted by hosting your blog on a subdomain (based on backlinks, keyword relevance and search rankings), it does result in double the workload, which makes it harder to achieve positive results.
User Experience
Now, you’ve learnt that SEO isn’t necessarily negatively impacted by having your blog on a subdomain, but that it takes double the work to get the same results which may impact your SEO.
However, when it comes to user experience, having a blog on your subdomain may negatively impact SEO.
User experience is a vital factor in SEO, as search engines prioritise websites that deliver positive experiences to users.
From a user perspective, having a blog on a subdomain might lead to a fragmented user experience, as visitors have to navigate between the main domain and the subdomain. This can impact engagement metrics and user satisfaction, which ultimately negatively impacts SEO.
If you do want to host your blog on a subdomain, it’s important to ensure that visitors can seamlessly navigate between the main domain and the subdomain, find relevant content easily, and have a cohesive and engaging experience across both sections of your website.
If it makes sense to have your blog on a subdomain, then it’s okay as long as you provide a positive and seamless user experience. Sometimes, separating your blog content and using a subdomain can actually improve user experience.
“By separating the HubSpot Blog from the rest of the website, it makes it obvious to visitors where they’re located on the HubSpot website as a whole. This is helpful considering www.hubspot.com focuses on the HubSpot product line, while blog.hubspot.com contains articles that don’t necessarily relate to HubSpot products. Separating the two from each other with a subdomain keeps everything organized and helps visitors find what they need”.
– HubSpot
In HubSpot’s case, the main website is focused on new customers, but the blog is focused on existing customers, and the keywords used across both domains is reflective of this. As you can see, in some situations it does make sense to use a subdomain for a blog, and it can be done successfully.
Recap
Having a blog on a subdomain creates double the workload when it comes to SEO and it may negatively impact your SEO if you can’t provide a positive user experience to users.
Two reasons why having your blog on a subdomain might be beneficial
Separate branding and identity for the blog
By hosting your blog on a subdomain, you can create a distinct branding and identity specifically tailored to your blog’s content.
This separation allows you to establish a unique voice, design, and messaging that aligns with your blog’s objectives. It gives your blog its own digital real estate and strengthens its individual presence within your overall online strategy.
On top of this, if you have multiple brands a subdomain can help your customers differentiate between your blog content and your brands.
Helps users browse extensive content
If your blog has a tonne of content, a subdomain may be a good option to help users manage their way through your extensive list of content without getting lost.
Best Practices for Using a Subdomain for Your Blog
If you decide you want to use a subdomain for your blog, you’re going to want to make sure you:
- Optimise subdomain blog content for target keywords
- Implement proper interlinking between subdomain and main domain
- Monitor and analyse SEO performance metrics for the subdomain
- Integrate branding elements to maintain a cohesive online presence
Optimising Subdomain Blog Content for Target Keywords
It’s no use optimising your main domain for keywords and forgetting about your subdomain. You’re going to want to ensure that your subdomain blog content is optimised for target keywords as well, otherwise your SEO efforts will be in vain
Implementing Proper Interlinking between Subdomain and Main Domain
This allows search engines to understand the relationship between the two and helps in transferring authority and relevance.
You can do this by incorporating relevant links from the subdomain blog to other pages on the main domain and vice versa. You should also use descriptive anchor text that reinforces the context and relevance of the linked content.
Monitoring and Analysing SEO Performance Metrics for the Subdomain
You should be treating your subdomain as another website when it comes to SEO. As such, you’re going to want to regularly monitor and analyse the SEO performance metrics for your subdomain blog.
You can use tools like Google Analytics, SEM Rush and Google Search Console to gain insights into traffic, engagement, and keyword rankings. Monitor key metrics such as organic traffic, bounce rate, time on page, and conversions to assess the effectiveness of your subdomain blog in attracting and engaging your target audience. This can be a great way to test and improve the user experience of your subdomain to prevent negative SEO rankings.
Integrating Branding Elements to Maintain a Cohesive Online Presence
Unless your blog sits under a different brand, you’re going to want to help users feel like your subdomain is a part of your main brand. Keeping your online presence cohesive and singular is important to building your authority as a trusted advisory in your niche.
To do this, ensure consistent use of brand logos, colours, fonts, and messaging to create a unified brand experience. This helps reinforce brand recognition and reinforces the connection between the subdomain blog and the overall brand identity.
Should You Have a Blog on Your Subdomain?
“My way of thinking with regards to subdomains is that it depends on what you’re trying to do. Is it content that’s meant to be tightly connected to the main site? then put it on the main site. If you want the content to stand on its own, then a subdomain is a good match”.
– John Meuller, 2022
If you have a limited budget or if you’re doing your SEO internally, then it may not be the best idea to have your blog on a subdomain. This is because it’s going to take double the work to achieve successful results with SEO and you may not have the resources available to spend double the time on this.
However, if you have an extensive team or a large budget and you have a specific reason for wanting to use a subdomain for your blog, then it may be beneficial for you. Remember, there are companies that use this method and achieve phenomenal SEO results (HubSpot, for example).
Once you decide on whether or not to use a subdomain for your blog, you’re going to want to focus on improving your SEO. The best way to do this is by producing content that Google views as helpful to users. You can read more about Google’s helpful content update in this article.
