There are many aspects of an organization that can make it a successful and successful business. For many, an attractive and user-friendly website is a crucial factor in building a brand and attracting customers. This is especially the case if you run an e-commerce business. A website gives you a brand identity and creates a place where customers can find more information about what you do. So how can a subdomain affect this?
In this article, we’re going to talk about subdomains and the impact they can have on your SEO performance.
If you feel like adding another section to your website that showcases your brand, then you can use a subdomain. This subdomain allows you to provide additional information to users, and can even direct them to your e-commerce store.
Take Google, for example. There is Google’s main search engine, “google.com”, as well as “maps.google.com” and “earth.google.com”. Both are still part of Google’s main domain, but each has its own purpose outside of Google’s site. If Google is the main umbrella, subdomains are subcategories below it.
Here is an example URL with a subdomain:
It is important to note that not all sites need subdomains and they should only be used if it is relevant to your website and what you offer. Subdomains should not be confused with subdirectories. It looks like this:
How is a subdomain different from a domain?
When you look at a website’s URL, you see https://apple.com. This is often the name of your business or a name used to describe exactly what the website is for.
Now that you have your top-level domain and second-level domain, you can create a subdomain. For example, you can put “blog” or “payment” in front of the domain to indicate exactly what the subdomain is for.
6 Ways Subdomains Influence SEO
1. Better on-site experience
Using a subdomain allows you to provide a different user experience than your main site. Your subdomain is usually an extension of your main website, when you want to learn more about a certain topic but don’t want that information on your main website.
This improves the on-site experience, meaning you appear higher on the search engine results page (SERP).
For example, if a bakery sells baked goods in a physical store and their website also wants to start selling their own coffee beans, a subdomain might come in handy. It doesn’t distract from the site’s main goal of attracting customers to its baked goods, but it does allow it to sell coffee beans as well.
Although both are food-related, it would have been difficult to get positioning for coffee-related keywords on the main site since it is so baking-oriented. Therefore, a subdomain can also help target these niche keywords.
Are subdomains still useful for SEO?
Although subdomains are useful for an organization, they are not necessarily your ticket to the top search result on Google. Indeed, everything depends on your website, and their use must be done on a case-by-case basis.
This is the case when the user leaves the page without giving it a chance, because the user experience (UX) is too weak for them to navigate. Now imagine you’re creating a subdomain but you still haven’t mastered UX. The impact of your subdomain is not going to boost your base site, because people still won’t want to interact with it.
In other words, if your main site isn’t great, creating a subdomain won’t help you. Your priority should be the content and usability of your main domain. Have you taken the time to optimize your website images ? And are you using optimal bandwidth for hosting your site ? Consider the flaws of your original site before creating an additional subdomain.
Additionally, some consider a subdomain to be in competition with yourself. Strictly speaking, your subdomain can perform better than your main site. If they are optimized for the same keywords, they will compete with each other for top rankings.
This can be a problem for some companies. However, many consider it an advantage because it gives you an even greater chance of appearing on the first page of Google search results, regardless of which domain is there.
Subdomains are not useful for every business. In reality, you should only use them to support your main website if it’s appropriate.
Creating a subdomain for keyword stuffing and positioning purposes could end up doing more harm than good. In other words, if the subdomain doesn’t provide real value, don’t create one.
However, if you decide to use subdomains for your website, you should see positive effects on your SEO performance, including countering negative SEO and improving your keyword positioning.
