Community inside the domain or in a separate domain

[footd]

Hi there,

I work for an ecommerce company as an online marketing consultant. They make kitchenware, microware and so on.

The are reviewing their overall strategy and as such they want to build up a community.

Ideally, they would want to have the community in a separate domain. This domain wouldn't have the logo of the brand. This community wouldn't promote the brand itself. The brand would post content occassionally and link the store domain. The reasoning of this approach is to not interfere in the way of the community users and also the fact that the branded traffic acquired doesn't end up buying at the store

I like this approach but I am concerned because the brand is not that big to have two domains separated and lose all the authority associated with one strong domain. I would definitely have everything under the same domain, store and community, otherwise we would have to acquire traffic for two domains.

1. What do you think of both scenarios, one domain versus two? Which one is better?

2. Do you know any examples of ecommerce companies with successful communities within the store domain?

Thanks and regards

[SamuelScott]

Diego, thanks for the question. The issue is complicated, so I'll try to summarize point by point.

Ideally, they would want to have the community in a separate domain. This domain wouldn't have the logo of the brand. This community wouldn't promote the brand itself.

First off, I have to question the brand strategy. WHY does your company not want to the community to build the brand directly? A good, positive online community -- when run well -- can do wonders for a brand over the long term. Hey, just look at how much people love Moz just because of the community. I see no benefits to your company's idea -- and I see a lot of negatives.

The reasoning of this approach is to not interfere in the way of the community users and also the fact that the branded traffic acquired doesn't end up buying at the store

I don't buy this premise. There are times when direct sales are not the best Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of a certain marketing tactic. An online community builds a brand for the long term -- the KPIs may be metrics such as reach and more rather than direct sales resulting from community traffic and posts.

I'd read or watch this Whiteboard Friday -- it's on content marketing, but the idea is relevant. Few people see a piece of content and buy. But that's not the point. The more that people see the content time and time and time again, then the more likely it is that they will remember you when they do want to buy. It's the same idea in advertising: no one buys Coke because of an ad that they saw yesterday -- they buy Coke because of the ads they have seen for their entire lives. Likewise, no one is going to buy after reading a single community post. But the more that people engage and engage and engage with the branded community, the more likely it is that they will buy in the future. It's a long-term play.

Ideally, they would want to have the community in a separate domain.

Do you mean an entirely-separate root domain or a subdomain of the main root domain?

Either way, the same argument below applies.

I am concerned because the brand is not that big to have two domains separated and lose all the authority associated with one strong domain. I would definitely have everything under the same domain, store and community, otherwise we would have to acquire traffic for two domains.

You are correct. As much as Google likes to say that subdomains are treated the same as root domains, most of the data we've seen suggests otherwise. It's best to keep everything under the same root domain. If someone links to a community post or discussion and it's on a subdomain or another domain, then the main website will get little benefit.

Point: However, there are two times when a subdomain (or another root domain) may be better:

1. Creating a part of the website that will be less secure than the main website. Common example: A website has very confidential information, so they add a blog by putting Wordpress on a subdomain because Wordpress is less secure.

2. Very different design. It's a lot easier to have a completely-different design on a subdomain rather than in a subfolder on the main website.

Still, I'd suggest putting everything under the same root domain whenever possible. I hope this helps!

[EGOL]

Forums take a LOT of work.  If they want the forum to be successful and reflect well on the company then they should put it on the main domain where their name is on the line and all of their clients will see it and have an opportunity to check it out and use it regularly.

If they are not serious about this then just put the forum in an outhouse where nobody will see it.  It's going to die because they are not dedicated to it.

[JaneCopland]

EGOL and Samuel raise some very good points here. I feel like you're also somewhat at risk of looking like you're trying to deceive the audience if you're deliberately divorcing the community from the brand site and image, but using it to drive the community to commercial action. I am not sure how subtle they are planning on making that connection, but subtlety in that manner rarely works: it's a lot more "honest" and appreciated to cultivate a community and openly market a product, as Moz has done.

Using the Moz example, this site did not start out as a tool / analytics provider, so the community actually came first. When I was a full time employee, we were largely an SEO consultancy. The blog was a labour of love as far as Rand and the staff were concerned. In 2007 when we first introduced Premium (now Pro) accounts, we clearly used the community (which was pretty substantial, even back then) to market the service. To all but a very few negative folks, this went down fine.

If Rand had started a separate company and website hosting and selling SEO tools and subscriptions, and had dropped hints and posts every now and again here to promote it, it would not have been met with nearly as much favour.

The SEO points about two sites being twice as hard to maintain, market and rank than one also apply, but I would question whether a smaller brand can build a totally separate community that is a) big enough, and b) independent enough not to annoy users if they figure out the commercial intent behind it. If there's one thing that's slightly worse than no community, it's an empty one.