stand alone or integrated blog?

[Masetek]

I am planning a new big content site in the new year, and a blog of the same subject.

What do you reckon - integrate the blog (site.com/blog) or stand alone (blog.com). Im leaning towards integration atm because it wil mean my content site is getting new content every other day.

What do ya reckon?

[ozgression]

Definately intergrate them.

[Emancipator]

i agree integrate. I am by no means an expert though.

[Cutter]

One approach I've done on some of my sites is integrating the blog into the front page. I don't think one way is better than the other. If you have a seperate blog its easier to get links from other bloggers as well as DMOZ (in my experience.)

[James]

I agree with Cutter: if you feel that the blog will do well on its own and could do equally as good as the website itself, then I suggest going that route, but if you're creating it solely to add that little bit of extra content onto your website, and don't think it'll get all that much traffic, integrate it.

[Masetek]

Im really not sure how it will do...Ive never ran a blog before. Has anyone had and much success with a niche blog revenue and traffic wise?

[James]

I'd suggest looking through http://problogger.net for some insight about how much you could potentially earn.

[Chris]

A niche blog is really no different from a niche content site in terms of revenue potential.

[Cutter]

If you can bring in the audience then blogs can do very well as far as revenue potential.

From my own experience, making money off of a blog is tough. I run about 5 blogs. So far, I've been dissapointed in their revenue. I'm also noticing a rapidly rising level saturation in many topics. For example, I've got a golf blog. There are just tons of golf blogs out there with new ones popping up almost daily.

Search engine traffic has been so so. 90% of the search engine traffic is for phrases I'm not even trying to optimize for, although they are very targetted, its in low volume.

If you want to blog successfully, think about what is going to make you stand out, because search engine traffic alone isn't going to bring in the bulk of your revenues.

[Masetek]

Thanks guys. Well the site is going to be ready for about another month so I've got plently of time to think about it :)