Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am going to create an ecommerce website.  In addition to the website, I want to create a blog that will chronicle my experiences getting the website/business started.  The blog would be a sort of extension of the site.  I won`t be blogging about the products, but instead the process of running an online business.

My question is, since the blog is not directly related to the site, should I have a unique domain name for the blog, or should it share the same domain name as the website?  If my website is iLoveBaseball.com, then should be blog live at iLoveBaseball.com/blogs or should it have an entirely different address but be linked to the main website?

What are the benefits to sharing the same domain name?  The website is something of an experiment.  The main benefit I see to keeping them separate is that if the website doesn`t work out and I want to continue the blog then the blog wouldn`t be tied to an irrelevant website. 

Thanks for your feedback.

blogs are a great way to build a simple content site. but does it really build a sustainable, long-term, money-making business? but if you do want to proceed with it, i would personally tie the two up together for best results.

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Everybody is talking these days about "viral marketing." But what`s ironic, is that anyone with a domain name is already deeply involved with exactly that....the viral spread of the domain across the world wide web.

Each search engine that indexes the domain, each link to the domain, every reference to the domain ends up stored in the vast cloud of the Web. The more references and connections to that domain, the better the odds of public visibility.

One of the problems with changing a domain name is making sure that all the business developed on the original name transfers to the new domain. Why? Because there are references to that original domain name in too many places for any human being or computer to ever really find them all.

So why not increase the world-wide references to your domain name as often as you can?

Thanks Craig & WebJunky.  I`m not surprised to hear the responses that it would be best to tie the two together.  I guess the name of the game is web traffic so I should do anything I can to increase that traffic.  Thanks.

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www.searchmarketingsystems.net

Thanks, GoogleGuy.  I`ve never even heard of microsite marketing, but I`m looking forward to learning about it.  Also, thanks for replying to my other post about online business resources.  I really appreciate the input.

I just googled "microsite marketing" and realized that is the website design that drives me up a freakin` wall. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

Only the world of marketing would produce something so utterly devoid of usability, so completely absent navigability, so totally inaccessible, so thoroughly focused on raking in dough at the expense of the website visitor... and then tag it with a faddish buzzname like "microsite marketing," as if it was something grand worth remembering.

People who put up websites like this might as well include a little box on the page somewhere (if they can bring themselves to find out how) that says "Fork over your cash and then f*** off. We don`t intend to perform any sort of customer service and we don`t give a crap about you." Because that`s what a long, long, long scrolling page without even the decency of breaking it down into in-page anchors communicates to someone looking for information on that page. It is the closest a marketer can come to forcing users, against their will, to sit through an entire marketing message on the web. It is obnoxious, callous, short-sighted, and it won`t build a lasting brand. It is hte web equivalent of a 4:30 a.m. infomercial.

Just say no to "microsite marketing." If you`re trying to put together a legitimate business this kind of site is going to hurt you more in the mid- to long-term than it is going to help you.

—paula

Okay, Paula, but.....what do you really think of microsite marketing?

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www.searchmarketingsystems.net

Oh I see what you`re doing... yeah, The Roses San Diego site isn`t like the sites I saw when I looked up "microsite marketing." I didn`t know that technique had a name, I`ve thought of that as more like the equivalent of a brick-and-mortar shop that has a secondary door with a different address. It`s possibly a bit confusing but IMO it`s not a user experience disaster, and its a worthwhile tradeoff for the SEO advantages.

The sites that came up when I googled around for "microsite marketing" all looked like this one. From usability, accessibility, and user experience standpoints, there`s so much wrong with that type of design I wouldn`t even know where to begin breaking it down. I`m utterly baffled that type of design results in any sales at all, for anyone.

—paula