Blogging within Websites
Jessica Ek
17 Comments
A little while ago I received an email asking if it is better to have a main home page that is a static page that links to a blog or a blog that has links to static pages. My first instinct was to recommend having a static page ensuring that the most important keywords are also on the main site. However, I took some time and asked a few people both at Squarespace and elsewhere what the best option really is. There were some interesting thoughts and this series of discussions has led me to change my answer to having the main site be a blog and I’ll tell you why.
There are amazing sites that are mainly blogs. They are constantly changing and Google knows this, revisiting frequently. This changing content can give you search results on a wide variety of topics and give you a distinct advantage on timely keywords. It also gives every visitor direct access to the blog and lets them know that the site is active and up-to-date instead of sending them looking for the blog link. Plus, this is a feature that not everyone can do. Anyone can add a blog from Blogger onto their existing site, but not many can integrate is as cleanly into the site design as you can. This offers you a distinct advantage. And if you have a pass-through section in the margin with a quick “about us” paragraph, you can get the best of all worlds by making sure your top keywords always appear on the page in addition to the changing content.
Therefore, if you’re setting up a site and you’re trying to figure out what the landing page should be, I’d recommend using the journal. It puts your best foot forward and gives you an edge in Google. Commenters have been noting an aversion to being known as a “blog” as opposed to a “website” but in the end I think this is a very arbitrary distinction to begin with. What’s so bad about blogging within a website?
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Reader Comments (17)
Depending on your specific application you can decide if its more of a blog or more of a site. Making a distinction between blogs and sites is not a proper way of looking at the application.
We are very satisfied with our Squarespace application, it works well for us, and we are not proficient in HTML.
Anyway -- re: the benefit of using the journal as the main page. The only place I share my SS site openly (beyond SS promotion tools or fellow blog friends) is through an RV forum. Since my blog may not always be about RVing, I use a workaround for those visitors. A link in the forum takes them to "Our RV Story" page and that allows them to locate topics of interest to them. Without this, I bet most of them would bail out immediately.
Worse still I didn't know if I could classify my new creation as a website or blog. Although perhaps not a 'traditional' blog, it does have a blog style journal (with comments etc) but some of the posts will just be short and to the point because that is the style of it. I then thought does it really matter if it is classified as a website or a blog, after all is a blog not just another 'form' of website?
On another note I think I am becoming addicted to squarespace- v. scary!! It really is superb and I hope everyone has voted for you in the Webware 100 award...
1) The best way to integrate your blog with a static website is to let Squarespace manage it all ;)
2) I'd recommend pushing blogs in front of static pages -- as they generally contain more timely information, and that's more relevant to your visitors.
Originally I had separate pages, causing Technorati to track and report everything twice,. This is not only confusing, it can also dilute your blog's ranking. This happens because (I think) Technorati will always recognize your home page. It is the "normalized" version of your site's URL, and external links to your site will tend to point there. But if your blog's RSS feed is associated with a different URL, they also consider that to be separate blog, and associate your posts with that second URL. And there is currently no way for users to supply an alias for one of the two URLs.
As it happens, I wrote about this problem just yesterday, see:
http://www.webperformancematters.com/journal/2007/6/6/taming-the-technorati-monster.html
I may have some details wrong, but do I know this seems to be a common problem, one that shows up regularly in Technorati's customer support forum. See for example:
http://support.technorati.com/topic/780?replies=19
We had registered our URL www.stradaautostore.com prior to starting our blog, this URL redirects visitors to our Squarespace URL.
If your application requires numerous photos, we have found that the Squarespace Photo Gallery is a great feature which works very well. Much easier than sending photos to a prospect, we just send a link to the applicable photo gallery.
Take a look at one of our photo galleries http://stradaautostore.squarespace.com/2003-s600-renntech/
Also I use this resource to help advise guide or whatever on keywords here is the site http://www.hittail.com a little script goes into each post from there it comes up with 'ORGANIC' search result suggestions, I find it very useful anyway I hope that is of use to someone, also to help the rankings of each post as that is where the PR for each post comes from why not try using http://www.onlywire.com it can be used to ad 15 back links in a singe click.
Have a b l o g g i n g good day. Pat
Looking at things now... my website has evolved into a modern day blog.
Having said that, my home page is not static at all really, as I am constantly changing "The Image of the Month", special offers are highlighted there (and always being updated), and there is a "dynamic gallery panel" showcasing an ever-changing selection of images...what I may do is to highlight the three latest headlines from my blog there too, so that those keep changing, and are easy to click through to from the main site...
All your comments have certainly got me thinking, so thank you for that!
My site is a blogsite. I coined this term and haven't seen it anywhere else. A blog is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the latest tool in marketing.
Go to my Advertise page to see my research listings on this subject.
Kelly Jad'on
http://www.BasilAndSpice.com
#1 Syndicated Author Interviews & Book Reviews
You know - periodically - I get offline questions from readers interested in how I do my site and some I think signup for the trial. I'm not sure if many commit afterwards - but I wonder has SS conisdered adding another "intro" tier service - like just blogging? I get the impression from some of my "interested readers" that even the SS basic service is more than they want -- or they are just overwhelmed. A blog only service might build your customer base faster and over time - many may choose to buy more services.
Just curious... I know so many folks seem to struggle with blogger and I feel sorry for them - they don't know what they are missing.
http://www.medialspamd.com is an example where I've loaded my ppc and banner ads as well as copy into the header to keep it locked in at the top. It also uses ss's three column hack for the right link column and the top horizontal header links.
http://www.nimbletheory.com uses only the header trick.
Hope this is of interest to someone.