WordPress is one of the world's major and most widely used blogging software. When it comes to SEO it is one of the hottest programs that you can use.
This is part of a series of tip articles just about using WordPress for maximizing on Search Engine Optimization.
Tip: Make sure the blog is on YOUR site
So often we are asked about adding a blog on another website such as Blogger or WordPress.com which provides free blog hosting and has a high PR rank.
If you are doing blogging for Search Engine Optimization purposes compared to obtaining traffic purposes, then you can ONLY locate your blog in one place and one place only – On your site!
Do not even think about using a sub-web such as http://www.blog.myhotsite.com. Why would you use a sub web anyhow unless if you want a cool blog URL.
Sub webs are part of your website but they are confusing from an SEO position. If you want to have the blog content 100% connected with your website then make sure it is off a sub folder and NOT a sub web for example : http://www.myhappysite.com/blog.
Sub webs will not gain you the identical SEO SEO ranking benefits across all search engines because many search engines treat sub webs as a separate website.
If your blog is currently on WordPress.com or Blogger.com then consider quickly to move it and it's contents to your physical website. Moving a WordPress.com hosted site to your own WordPress site hosted by you is easy – do a database backup and then set up WordPress on your internet site and then restore the contents. Moving a Blogger site to a WordPress site is not as easy. If you need to learn how to do this then just Google – "moving a blogger blog to wordpress" and you will get some good hints on how to do this.
One big matter to watch out for if you move a large blog to your site (with lots of content), that if you are currently ranking for a number of keywords, then your ranking can be seriously affected after you have added your blog content.
We have experienced client ranking drop after adding a lot of new content in the form of a blog to a clients sites. Adding a blast of new content 'dilutes' your current site content if the new content is NOT SEO optimized for the keywords that you want to rank for. SEO Optimize the content before making it live to avoid this dilution effect. Taking the time to do this BEFORE you add it to your site will make a big difference to your immediate ranking position.
