On-site or off-site: hosting your content with subdomains, subfolders, and microsites

By now, you have considered where to host your content and are thinking about self-hosting your branded content (or maybe you’re leaning toward platforms). Excellent! The first thing you need to know, then, is exactly what it is not. Self-hosting is not Medium or LinkedIn; it is not a social network; it is not a WordPress.com (which is different than WordPress.org, mind you) or Blogger.com. It does not limit your control over design, features, functions, etc. It is not free*. It is none of these things.

*Nothing’s “free” when it comes to hosting your content. Even with platforms like Medium—but more on that later.

What self-hosting does is allow a site owner to have complete control over the website files, the choice of servers where those files are stored, and the freedom to change them to whatever and whenever they want. Self-hosting allows a brand to be beholden to no one but themselves, their budget, and their technical know-how. It allows for content to live side by side (or, at least, adjacent) to a brand’s products or services. It allows for independence and freedom and all those other great things.

Let’s take a closer look at the pros of self-hosting your content:

• Customize design and branding: with the help of a consultant or in-house web designer, you can implement a fully customized design that showcases your content and branding. Fonts, colors, hero images, page templates, headers, footers, column widths, etc.—it’s all up to you. Best of all, you can change any lines of code whenever. You could overhaul your whole site every month if you have the time or resources.
• Improve site functionality and experience via plugins: if you choose to use a CMS platform like WordPress, you have access to thousands upon thousands of plugins for your site. (We recommend trying these 20 plugins). Many are free, others cost little. Some help with internal processes, like adding editorial calendars or managing your website’s SEO. Some provide external features, like share bars, comment systems, and e-commerce solutions.
• Integrate with third-party tools: with a few lines of code or some instructions, it’s easy to add any third-party tools you use to help track your content’s progress. Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Buffer—whatever the software, it’s easy to integrate it with your site so you can better understand your audience.
• Monetize site activity: any e-commerce site likes this one. By self-hosting your site, it’s easy to place advertising, e-commerce tools, and specialized landing pages to ultimately make money.

That all sounds good, right? Well, wait until you read the cons:

• Site security: no matter the size of your brand or business, you still have sensitive information on your site. You’ll need to take the necessary precautions to protect your site from a hack, but also from spammers, internet trolls, and viruses. Paying for website security can cost extra.
• Customer support, bandwidth, and site backups: if there’s ever a bad update or server crash, you are now your own customer service support. What happens if your site crashes from an overload of traffic? Do you have the necessary bandwidth to accommodate your audience? Unlike sites such as Medium and Tumblr—where they’re equipped to handle large bandwidths for everyone—your site is beholden to what you’re paying for. And if your site does crash, did you back it up correctly? Always have extra copies of your files. If you aren’t using a platform or service, you are responsible for all site backups.
• Time and resources: When self-hosting, you have to worry about design, testing, site security, and bugs. That’s great if you have a big team with the talent and resources to do this; not so great if you have a small one with a limited budget.

By now you must think you have a pretty good grasp on self-hosting. You do! But now you must break down your options for self-hosting even further by deciding between subdomains, subfolders, and microsites.

Subdomains

What is a subdomain, you ask? Well, this blog—blog.quiet.ly—is a subdomain. Google News—news.google.com—is a subdomain. The New York Times’ Well section—well.blogs.nytimes.com—is a subdomain. Hopefully, you’re getting the idea.

A subdomain is a separate website on your brand’s domain that is meant to host content. Companies like Google use subdomains to host their subdivisions so it’s easier to organize and find content.

Brands use subdomains for their blog content for several reasons:

1. Easy to set up: using a third-party host like WordPress allows brands to use a superior CMS platform while also manipulating the site’s code to look and feel like the rest of their marketing site (or not—it depends on a brand’s content strategy).
2. Similar to establishing a branded publication: using a subdomain is in many ways like creating a branded publication. There’s a clear place where a brand’s content lives and the content that lives there can be organized by theme, verticals, language, country, and so on. Since subdomains are more independent than their subfolder counterparts (see below), brands can use whatever third-party host they want, even if it’s different than their marketing site.

But should your brand use a subdomain setup? You absolutely can. It works for us! However, some reports believe that subdomains can hurt SEO. Current SEO best practices urge brands to stay away from subdomains. However, using a subdomain makes sense if you, 1) are using two different hosting platforms for your marketing site and blog, 2) want to power your blog with a better CMS platform, or 3) want to create better branding opportunities.

Subfolders

Readers like organized websites; a subfolder helps with the organizing. A subfolder is a folder within your brand’s website that can host your blog content. Something like www.yourwebsite.com/blog is an apt example. Using subfolders is a great way to create organized, searchable content that is directly related to your marketing site. It’s easy to add infinite folders around sections, categories, tags, and themes that make content discovery logical. Brands like using subfolders to host their content, though, because publishing frequent (and new) content adds vitality to their website (and SEO benefits). American Express’s Open Forum uses a subfolder (though a long one) as does PayPal Stories.

There aren’t many drawbacks to using a subfolder to host your content, unless you aren’t using a CMS platform to power your marketing site. Otherwise, subfolders are a safe bet for any brand looking to self-host their site.

Microsites

Admittedly, microsites are not the best place to host your content—or at least all of it. Microsites are—as the name implies—micro and should work in conjunction with your content to draw attention to a special product, campaign, content, or more. They work best as a cover page and one-stop destination to either a promotional campaign or a resource on a topic. Often, they make the most sense to host more packaged content, like e-books, white papers, magazines, and other types of content. As we’ve mentioned before, microsites are vehicles for side projects that need their own site.

To use microsites, brands must purchase a separate domain name and host the site in addition to their blog’s main home (if they self-host, that is). Additional costs, then, come into consideration. But more than costs, the question of need is most important. Most brands with modest content campaigns can get by without a microsite.

Subdomains, subfolders, microsites—no matter which type of site a brand chooses to self-host their content, it’s vital to remember that self-hosting affords a brand with the freedom to do what they want. It’s like Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben always said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Not interested in self-hosting your content? Stay tuned for the next part of this series, which dives into platforms.