Some Counterpoints To HubSpot’s Post On Website Redesign
October 12, 2010
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In HubSpot is a fast growing company and has some very smart people working for them such as Dan Zarrella (who I have interviewed) and Kipp Bodnar (who I recently liveblogged during a conference). Overall, I like them. With that said, despite having sharp team members, in their rush to produce content I think they sometimes suffer from a “more is more” mindset which can impact quality.
In a recent post about website redesign, they offered the following as the response to the question: where should your blog live?
Marketers often wonder whether their blog should be part of their site, hosted on a separate subdomain or living on an external blogging platform like WordPress. At HubSpot, we recommend that your blog is part of your site so that it attracts maximum SEO juices, e.g. www.yourdomain.com/blog or blog.yourdomain.com.
They had this right with the first part – a blog should live at www.yourdomain.com/blog. A sub-domain such as blog.yourdomain.com is not the ideal solution for most businesses because you’re having to build authority for 2 different sites. The sub-domain is essentially starting fresh, and you’re having to work twice as hard here. Unless your blog content is radically different from your product content (this is almost never the case) or you’re going to invest a lot of work in your blog, you want to build up authority of a single domain and all its content. As Rand at SEOmoz notes:
99.9% of the time, if a subfolder will work, it’s the best choice for all parties. Subfolders have all the flexibility of subdomains (the content CAN, if necessary, be hosted on a unique server or completely unique IP address through post-firewall load balancing) and none of the drawbacks. Subfolder content will contribute directly to how search engines (and users for that matter) view the domain as a whole. The link in to subfolders are considered relevant to the domain as a whole, and while this rule applies for many subdomains, the exceptions make it worth avoiding them.
Of course, HubSpot would recommend blog.yourdomain.com for the simple reason that’s how they are setup. But that’s not the right way to do it unless you’re going to commit to producing heroic amounts of content on both your domain and sub-domain like they are. Consolidating domain authority is the way to go, as Rand notes.
Their post continues…
One of the primary reasons for blogging is to create tons of niche content that enables you to get found online for diverse keyword combinations.
If this is a primary reason you’re blogging, you’re going to fail. This is not and should not be a motivator to your blogging efforts. At its core, a primary reasons for blogging should be passion. I know that’s difficult for most businesses to grasp, but if you hope to put forth the years of sustained effort blogging takes to succeed you need it. The reasons behind the initiative matter…a lot. I’d say if a primary reason you are going to blog is traffic, that actually falls under the reasons your company shouldn’t blog.
Next up, they answer the question: do you recommend making changes incrementally?
A gradual approach to website redesign is easier to undertake than a sudden redesign. Incremental changes reduce the probability of unexpected user experiences and confusion. As Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr wrote in his article about Digg, “If we’ve learned anything from Facebook’s many redesign and privacy fiascoes, it’s that major overhauls of large websites don’t go over well.” Drastic changes scare people.
Except, this response makes almost no sense in the context of a business website redesign which exists to sell a product or promote a brand. Quoting Ben Parr in response to Digg’s redesign is a totally different situation than redesigning a website for a brand which sells products or services. No one redesigning websites at the scale of Digg or Facebook is seeking “10 website redesign tips” from HubSpot, and the language on their webinar page is certainly speaking to those with no or little experience designing websites such as SMBs. An SMB that has a website with a dated or broken design doesn’t need to worry about change in the same way as a community-driven social news site or social network, they are far more free to implement big changes and fix dated designs by launching something totally new. This advice just doesn’t apply to their audience.
Their post overall just left me a bit let down. I think they can do better. What are your thoughts?
John McTigue replied | Oct 12, 2010 (1 comment)
Full disclosure – I’m a Certified HubSpot Partner, but I don’t work for HubSpot nor vice versa. Having said that I’ll take issue with some of your comments.
1. You don’t have to set up a HubSpot blog as a subdomain using HubSpot. You can keep absolutely everything under the primary domain if you want by using the HubSpot CMS, including subfolders etc.. HubSpot does it that way on their own site for reasons that they will probably answer here.
2. I think you’re overemphasizing the “primary” reason for blogs. Countless HubSpot blogs and other articles explain that the whole strategy of blogging is to communicate with your audience and generate brand loyalty through excellence. The SEO benefit should not be overlooked, but HubSpot never coaches you to write blog posts for SEO. They emphasize aligning business goals and ideas with SEO smarts.
3. I don’t always agree with HubSpot on website design either, but for small companies it does make sense to look at the inbound marketing strategy first and not just jump into a website refresh. The whole purpose of a redesign should be to better address the needs of your visitors, communicate better, offer compelling content, and last but not least capture leads. Most companies miss at least one of these marks, and website redesign is part of an overall strategy to improve in these areas. I think the piecemeal strategy can be effective, especially if there are serious budget constraints or management push-back. Sometimes a foothold is better than a leap.
4. I think you may have some legitimate points about that particular blog post, but you make it sound like HubSpot is always extrapolating beyond their in-house expertise. I for one applaud their initiatives to get inbound marketing out their to the masses, and if they stimulate dissent once in a while, that’s all good too.
Adam Singer replied | Oct 12, 2010 (563 comments)
Hey John:
1. Wasn’t talking about HubSpot’s product, merely their consulting in the post.
2. They are the ones who wrote “primary”
3. That doesn’t have to do with what they wrote, but good advice, I agree :)
4. Agreed it’s a good thing they promote the concept of pull marketing.
Cheers for the comment.
Charity Hisle replied | Oct 12, 2010 (3 comments)
Adam,
I really enjoy your posts. You do a great job at evaluating the content being generated by industry leaders. Keep up the good work!
Mike Volpe – HubSpot replied | Oct 12, 2010 (1 comment)
Love the debate, and thanks for stimulating the discussion to keep us honest. I’ll let the community debate and decide the merits of the individual points, but I will add some links/sources for the subdomain / subfolder issue.
I had Rand on HubSpot TV last week (for the second time) and I love him and respect him a ton. The post you cited was from 2006. I found these two posts from 2007 (about 18 months after your quote from Rand) and they seem to indicate that starting in 2007, and increasingly over time, the search engines are treating subdomains less as different sites and more as pages within a site.
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html
http://searchengineland.com/071207-090257.php
I wonder if Rand’s opinion has changed since 2006 on this issue?
Catherine Lockey replied | Oct 12, 2010 (63 comments)
You’re right on about small business website redesign Adam and I agree it makes no sense to do it incrementally. Of course, a marketing expert should be in charge of the entire redesign process.
I also agree compelling content results from passion about one’s subject. If I, or anyone else, churns out content just to drive traffic, how good is that content really? People are drawn to passion – whether it’s a speech, a dance, a song, or a blog post. I think of average and below average content as background filler which inadvertently promotes compelling content through contrast.
Rand Fishkin replied | Oct 12, 2010 (1 comment)
Hi Adam – thought I’d jump in and add a few points:
Subdomains vs. Subfolders – yes, subfolders is still the “best” option if possible. Subdomains often inherit and pass most of the search-engine related metrics back and forth with the root domain, but not always. The fact that Hubspot offers both options is great, and it’s doubtful in most cases that it makes a huge difference (but I always like to be safe).
On blogging – it’s hard to say for any given individual or business that there’s a universal primary reason, but I think in the case of Hubspot customers, producing content that helps grow the reach, branding and visibility of the company for sales/marketing is likely spot on. That particular quote you extracted mentioned the keyword combinations as “one of the primary reasons,” and in the context of getting found/noticed online, I don’t think I’d disagree. To some extent, I’d say it might be a bit exaggerated, but it’s also somewhat nitpicky.
When it comes to making big changes to a site (redirecting things, redesigns, etc), I’m usually a fan of incremental changes when they make sense, simply because there’s so much that can go wrong (from technical, marketing, user feedback and SEO perspectives). Changing the CSS one week, then making the redirects another and finally adding in big new sections the third makes a lot of sense – and it can show you the analytics impact each of those changes had. Naturally, there are times when you’re small enough or have validated/tested enough to make this less critical, but it’s definitely not terrible advice.
All the best!
Sandra replied | Oct 12, 2010 (1 comment)
Thanks for the recommendation of hosting the blog in a sub-folder rather than a sub-domain. Had been debating this (not for a blog but client resources), and was thinking of going sub-domain, but will go for sub-folder instead.
The primary reason for blogging should be to provide valuable content for your customers and prospective customers. It also demonstrates expertise. BUT for small businesses, the SEO benefits are often what persuades them it is a good idea. Sadly many don’t understand the value of information and demonstration of expertise via their websites.
As far a gradual/incremental vs radical redesign – I’d say do both if you can.
Quite often (again for small business) the reason their websites get so dated is because the can’t update and tweak incrementally. I say If You Can – it means don’t go tweaking the design if you don’t know what you’re doing – ie get the original designer to do it so it is an evolution.
Then when you want to make bigger structural changes, do a complete re-do.
If the original design reflected your brand (including logo and colors), your product and/or industry and designed to appeal to your ideal target audience, you shouldn’t be in a position where the new design is completely unrecognizable from the old one in most cases. Mashable is a good example of an evolutionary design. The current site looks nothing like the original but you can see how it has evolved.
Aaron Weiche replied | Oct 12, 2010 (1 comment)
Adam – Great to address the subdomain vs. subfolder set-up for a blog and even better to have Rand comment with his take. As a web design firm, we might In develop a website that can often use a subdomain as it’s own island, I think you’re always best with domain.com/blog.
The other point I wanted to comment on is the reason behind blogging for a business. If SEO is your only reason to do it, it will likely be all you get out of it. If you blog to share expertise, passion and to connect … then you get about 10 other benefits. I think it’s a shame to limit yourself like that. Thanks.
Sjkato replied | Oct 14, 2010 (1 comment)
Adam – very good points, they made me think a lot about blogging and web-design.
Passion is a true key with most jobs, especially when it comes to computer related jobs, if you have none, you wont get far with work at all!
Your talk of complete overhauls not necessarily being completely out of the question for SMB websites does make sense. We often hear about the big sites which try it and then the problems which relate to that, but since we are usually in awe of the big sites, we try and follow their ways and advice (they are big and successful, obvious they must have the right idea, right?), though ideally you should take that advice with a pinch of salt. As you said, its not the same situation.
Ray Gulick replied | Oct 14, 2010 (6 comments)
I’ve wondered for a long time about the relative merits of having a blog in a subfolder versus a subdomain; was pleased to finally hear a clear opinion and rationale. If WordPress is the platform on which an entire site is built (which is what I recommend to clients), it’s just easier to make the blog part a “subfolder”.
I am a fan of HubSpot for businesses, but I’ve found their expertise with website design to be shallow and often misleading. I basically no longer pay any attention to any Hubspot design-related information. They do, however, often offer interesting and useful UI information which web designers would do well to read.
Ari Herzog replied | Oct 17, 2010 (7 comments)
…then you have someone like me who’s primary blog, focused on social media marketing, is at http://ariwriter.com — and when the time came to create a second blog targeted to my constituents as a local elected official, I decided on the easiest: http://council.ariwriter.com.
Because of some backlinks between the two, the authority of both increase, so that the master domain’s Google pagerank is currently a 5, and the subdomain is a 3. For what it’s worth.
Adam Singer replied | Oct 18, 2010 (563 comments)
True on the backlinks passing authority — but remember, Google’s pagerank is no longer a meaningful metric :)
Dana Willhoit replied | Oct 22, 2010 (1 comment)
Hey Adam, love your website. I get a lot of useful info here.
I wanted to make a comment on the idea of including a blog that’s created solely to promote your website and increase the chances that customers will find you – frankly, I’m all for it. I don’t think that doing so automatically means that you’re producing a bad, inferior blog. If you’re blogging about your business, chances are you are blogging about an area where you have expertise and can pass along genuinely useful information to people – and while you are doing that, you are helping potential customers find you when they are online, searching for businesses like yours.
I write press releases for a living; on my website, I have a blog in which I write posts about how to write press releases, why it’s important to do keyword research for your press releases, places to submit your press releases for free, ideas for press releases, etc….and the ONLY reason that I have this blog is for business purposes. I don’t have time to blog about my passions or my hobbies. But I give away good, helpful information. Not because I’m such an unbelievably nice person (which I am, of course) – but because it helps potential customers find me. And I need to pay the bills.
So, my long-winded point is…blogs that exist only for business purposes can be useful, helpful, and interesting.