What are your thoughts on separate blogs throughout a website?

[Dan Foland]

Hey all,

I've been pondering testing this out but am curious if anyone has any thoughts.

For example, let's say I'm working on a law firm's website who specializes in criminal defense. I've always had a /blog/ section that housed all of our blogs.

But, what are your thoughts on having more specific blogs for each practice area, and housing them under that practice area?

For example, let's say that we have a transactional page about DUI defense e.g. example.com/dui-lawyer/ would it make sense from an SEO and user experience point of view to have all blogs that are DUI specific to be housed under /dui-lawyer/? e.g. example.com/dui-lawyer/blog-post/

My thinking is that it will push more value to the /dui-lawyer/ page while also showing blog posts that are only relevant to that practice area and the user.

I'm curious if anyone has ever done this, or what everyone thinks of this strategy?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I've found that the URL structure doesn't matter much as long as the URL is short (helps with CTR). What really matters is the internal linking. We have all kinds of sites that have super inconsistent URL structures (some pages are on domain/blog/focus-keyword some are just domain.com/focus-keyword.

I did a deep dive into this topic once for a client who asked me and put all my conclusions in my training here.

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Sounds like it is a form of content silo. Not sure there is definitive data if silos work or not, at least the debate seems to go back and forth as far as I can tell.

It can be more useful for a searcher however. If I'm looking for help with a specific issue, I don't need to see info on all the other practice areas.

 

[Dan Foland]

Thanks for the source, Joy! This is pretty much what I expected, though I would imagine it would lead to greater internal linking (if done right) since it would be treated the same as the other practice area content and not separate.

 

[Dan Foland]

Sounds like it is a form of content silo. Not sure there is definitive data if silos work or not, at least the debate seems to go back and forth as far as I can tell.

It can be more useful for a searcher, however. If I'm looking for help with a specific issue, I don't need to see info on all the other practice areas.

I hesitated with putting the word silo in my post. While it would be silo-ish I would also link out to other areas of the website when applicable.

 

[AndySimpson]

Hi Dan

Great question, while I wait for a sitebulb crawl I'll just tell you what has worked for me.

Now I haven't tried your suggested method but what I have found works, with great success, is just adding a few "related" blogs to the bottom of each practice area page.

It's been referred to by a few "in the industry" as the "hub and spoke" method where you link to related content from your main (in this case attorney site) practice area pages.

I either try and get the writer to include natural internal links within the page copy or I add "Related Articles" followed by a bullet list of perhaps 5/6 related blog posts at the bottom of the practice page. I have seen very good organic growth using this method.

Note: Always make sure that the blog links back to the practice area page (sometimes this gets missed). I sometimes add the "related articles" to the bottom of each blog post as well, to add to the relationship of each blog.

However, if you test your pondering please share your findings.

Cheers...okay back to the audit!!

side note: you probably do this anyway, I just thought I'd share with you and the gang something that has worked well for me over the past few of years.

 

[Emily Brady]

Another idea would be to pull a feed for specific blog categories on related service / practice area pages. That way users have the opportunity to click through to related info while you can house all blog content under one URL structure, if that makes sense. At the end of the day I think the most important thing is to give users what they’re looking for, which you can accomplish in a variety of ways.

 

[Dan Foland]

@Emily Brady Good idea! This is kind of what I was thinking too. We have many blogs that don't necessarily fit under one of our practice areas or they fit under multiple practice areas. So still having a central place for all blogs while displaying certain categories under each practice area.

I'd have to think more about the logistics such as canonical tags, URL structure, etc. of this route.