Basic question about effective blogging....

[jseville]

Should I use a domain separate from the website which I'm trying to push up in SEO terms that links back to my priority website?

For example, I understand that blog marketing can be very effective if done correctly. Should I include the blog within my website http://www.justnewlistings.com or should the blog be on a separate website that always links back with various anchor texts to my main website JustNewListings.com?

Started looking into this before but it got too complicated for my limited time. What is the proper plug in for wordpress to tag one's posts effectively? So ignorant about this...but aware of its potential.

jay

[pcdoc]

Should I include the blog within my website http://www.justnewlistings.com

yes

[judyo]

Jay, here's my personal take:

My first blog started within my REW website. It still showed up quickly on se's for some of the posts that were unique with good keywords in the post title. It also adds to the overall site by increasing pages with each post. If I'm too busy to be adding content to my site (I have several sites), it's easy enough to write a post to my blog - voila! New site content.

My 2nd blog was a stand alone blog to see if that would make a difference. However, I'm not getting one-way links from my blog to my main site since I had a link on my main site (this was the Oak Lawn site) pointing to the blog. So the best that can be had with a stand alone blog is a local reciprocal link(s). You want people that come to your main site aware that you have a blog so you're going to have a link either to your internal blog or the external one on your site and it should be on the home page.

I have another story about that. My stand alone blog went through the deindexing that has been going around so I added a blog to my Oak Lawn site & was ready to ditch the other one. However, all of the pages came back on the first blog so I still post to it once in a while as the domain has been around for over a year and I hate to completely dump it. Wish it wasn't such an area specific domain as I would do something else with it.

You definitely need to set up the Permalinks before posting as that is what gives your url some meaning by using the title in your posts. Try to title your posts by using keywords but keep the title understandable to readers and logical to the post. Some posts just won't be keyword specific but simply informative so don't worry about all of them.

Whenever possible, use proper anchor text links in your posts linking back to specific pages on your site. Don't spam and post just to acquire good internal links, just use them when they fit.

[kensmith]

In general I think it is most likely best to make it part of your main site IF, and this is a big IF, you can actually keep posting to it. I don't think anything makes me feel like a site is dead and/or outdated more than seeing a blog as part of it and there are no posts in the last few months.

My 2nd blog was a stand alone blog to see if that would make a difference. However, I'm not getting one-way links from my blog to my main site since I had a link on my main site (this was the Oak Lawn site) pointing to the blog. So the best that can be had with a stand alone blog is a local reciprocal link(s).

Judy just add the "no follow" tag to the link from your site to the blog and now you will have one way links .

[judyo]

That's one thing I never studied or done, a no follow tag. However, my stand alone blog really is giving a one-way link now because I have a built-in blog on my Oak Lawn site & do not point back to the external blog anymore.

[Jnazareno]

I have 4 blogs 2 stand alone and two within my sites.
Pcdoc is correct, it's better to have the blog within the site.
a Blog is also most effective when you add contents on a daily basis.

[jseville]

Then what are/is the best way to arrange the format. I know that one wants the title of posts in their URLs to use some keywords, and to provide some internal links (do internal links really help much???). But aside from those two, is their any special plug in that makes a difference from SEO perspective??

jay

[judyo]

I've yet to find a plug-in that works for meta title, description and keywords. I've tried a couple and cannot get them to work.