Blog Writing Tips – Blogger, WordPress and Subdomains: Where is the Best Place to Host my Blog for SEO?

There are various ways to host a blog online. If you have started planning your content marketing strategy, you have likely already heard of Blogger, WordPress, sub-domains and sub-directories. But what are they really, how do they apply to you and your business and which is best for boosting Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? In this article, we will explain the main differences between them and list the pros and cons of each so you can decide which is best for your blog.

What is the difference between Blogger vs WordPress and which one is best?

Blogger, which allows you to create a personalised Blogspot domain, is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to write a blog and publish it online. WordPress is a lot more involved than Blogger, offering a fully kitted out Content Management System (CMS) for creating fully-customised websites. Which one is best comes down to personal preference what you want to use it for.

For example, if you love writing and you are looking for a way to publish your innermost thoughts online by means of a personal blog, then Blogger has exactly what you need to write and publish your content online. However, if you own a business and you are looking to host a website or blog with the sole purpose of making money, then WordPress with its more advanced and modifiable features may be a better option. In short, Blogger offers you limited control, whereas WordPress offers you complete control. It’s up to you what you prefer and how much customisation you require for your blog.  

Blogger pros and cons: a summary

Blogger is an extremely simple and efficient tool to use. You do not need to be a web designer to create a basic Blogspot page; anyone with the most basic computer skills can do it within a matter of minutes. For those who prefer to simply write a blog post and publish it with little fuss or fanfare, this is a major advantage.

Blogger offers a number of built-in and ready-made templates and features you can use, such as an email subscription function, basic advertising, and a contact form. However, if you are looking for anything more advanced than a templated blog page, such as pop-ups to provide offers and lead generation forms for your business, you are going to need to have experience in HTML coding, or choose a different tool entirely.

What’s more, Blogger is a tool that is run through a Google account which means, in short, that you do not own your blog, Google does. If Google ever decides to do away with Blogger, your blog page could disappear overnight. On the plus side, security is not an issue with Blogger; your blog is as secure as Google so you do not need to worry about backing up your website.

WordPress pros and cons: a summary

WordPress is an easy tool that allows you to create a fully customisable blog page, even without HTML knowledge. With WordPress, you have the option to completely tailor the design of your website with both built-in features and themes as well as third party plugins. However, you will need to have more in-depth computer skills to understand how the plugins and Block Editor works.

WordPress is also not linked to a specific web host. This means you can move to a new web host at any time you like and there is no risk of losing access to your website. WordPress allows you to own all of your own data and control what you share with third parties which is particularly useful for e-commerce websites.

Another advantage of WordPress is that because it uses open source software, you can download additional features and integrate a number of third party tools to expand the functionality of your website. These include adding a shopping catalogue to your site, installing pop-ups and much more. One thing to consider is that because WordPress is self-hosted, you have to manage your own site security by backing up your data.

Subdomains vs. subdirectories and which is best?

Whether you choose to host your blog on your own web page via a subdomain or a subfolder is completely up to you and depends on your SEO strategy as an individual or a business. If you are looking for a way to encourage your website to rank quickly and build credibility on one parent site, then a sub-folder or sub-directory may be best.

However, if you are looking to host multiple brands on one parent domain, such as if you have a business with different geographical markets, a subdomain can help you manage these, while inheriting parent domain authority at the same time. Here are the main differences between a subdomain and a sub-directory so you can choose which is best for you:

What is a subdomain?

A subdomain is an extension of your domain name and comes as a prefix to your existing web page URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Businesses often use subdomains to host a blog, an online e-commerce store, or for testing purposes. An example of a subdomain would be blog.domainname.com.

Pros of a subdomain

• Helps a business manage more than one brand under one domain name
• Can be technically easier to set up than a subfolder
• Has some benefits of gaining authority from the main parent domain
• Opportunity to optimise your keywords within your URL
• Can support an international SEO strategy for multiple brands

Cons of a subdomain

• Google considers your blog content as a separate site to your parent domain
• You will need an additional SEO and backlink strategy for your blog as your main website
• The content won’t rank as quickly as it would in a sub-folder that relies on the parent domain authority
• It usually requires more work and ongoing maintenance than a sub-directory or sub-folder

What is a sub-directory?

A subdirectory, also known as a subfolder, is a suffix that comes at the end of your existing web page URL. A sub-directory is a way to organise and categorise the content within your website to help you and your customers to navigate easily around your site. For example, a blog or a product page can be stored under a specific subdirectory. An example of a sub-directory would be domainname.com/blog or domainname.com/products.

Pros of a sub-directory

• It uses a single domain which increases your web domain authority and builds trust and credibility
• The chances of ranking on Google are higher
• Google will crawl new blog posts quickly and rank more quickly than a subdomain
• Backlinks and social interactions on your blog can give the other pages on your website a boost (great for e-commerce shopping pages)
• Allows for easy categorisation and navigation within your website
• Easier to track results in Google Analytics

Cons of a sub-directory

• Difficult for global companies with multiple brands to track performance on Google Analytics
• If one page is corrupted or blacklisted by Google for whatever reason, it could affect or penalise the rest of the website

What is best for SEO blog writing?

There are pros and cons to using all of the options listed above. There are hundreds of SEO consultants that will tell you that one option is better than another, so, you should always choose whatever works best for you and your business.

At the end of the day, a powerful SEO strategy for your blog really comes down to powerful content. So many companies spend so much time and money on the technical aspects of SEO and forget what is really important to the customer. For best results, we recommended that you first concentrate on building and coding your website and blog properly, and then focus on great SEO copywriting to do the rest.

SEO content is key: tips for blogging success

Take your time building a strong SEO strategy using keyword research and planning. Use one or two relevant long-tail keywords in each blog post and evenly place your primary keywords throughout the article and your website. Avoid keyword stuffing. Always optimise your content and design for mobile, link to related blog posts within your content and include image alt text on all images. Outreach to relevant websites to feature your content or use guest posting to build up trustworthy backlinks. Don’t forget to optimise your meta description and content tags.

Whenever you can, aim to host your blog page on, or otherwise direct it to, your main website for best SEO practice. Hosting your blog and main site in the same place is a great way to boost your internal SEO strategy, build credibility for your domain and optimise your site to improve where your website and blog ranks on Google. But remember, while hosting or redirecting your blog to your website is important, your SEO content strategy is even more so. If you’re unsure of how to optimise your website content yourself, you can always rely on professionals to help guide your content marketing strategy to guarantee fast, efficient and relevant results.

---