A Blogs appearance

[onlinemediadirect]

What are peoples opinions on a blog and its appearance in relation to a site. The two ways being -

1. A Blog that is fully fitting within the theme of the main website.

2. A seperate entity following a standard wordpress theme

Now I have seen many different scenarios and I wanted to share some experiences and gain insight from other people on here. I once spoke to a web designer who totally frowned upon the idea of it being a separate entity.

"It looks cheap it doesn't fit within the design"

My thoughts are benefits can been found with having a separate looking blog it provides that realistic "student" type look and feel adding a "realistic" angle.

Thanks for your opinions,

[junioruf]

Garry,

Personally I let the client decide what type of design they want for their blog; but I always make sure that there is a way to navigate from the blog to the site and from the site to the blog. To me, blogs should be about that clients personality and it should be inviting. I hope this helps!

[Daylan]

I think it all depends on the level of branding/brand awareness you want to have.

If you have a site that you want to be closely related to the blog content, then i think you'd be crazy to not have it at least similar to the main site. For me it's a question about brand recognition. If the blog content can give you brand awareness kudos, then definitely don't stray (to far at least) from the main site appearance.

The other question you might wanna ask is if a completely different looking site would confuse the reader. Jumping from one site to a completely different site may make the web experience for your visitor a little disjointed, which again may affect your brand awareness/experience.

[onlinemediadirect]

both pros for keeping the blog the same theme as the main site. I would love to hear from people who prefer the other angle.

[JamesNorquay]

hi good questions,

personally I like to have the same colour scheme on the company blog as you do on the company website.

I mean the best practice for blogs is to have them sit within the sub folder on your websites and within the navigation sure enough with .net ASP set ups it is a bit more tricky then other CMS's.

so my advice is: yes make sure the colour scheme is the same, make sure it sites within a sub folder, and also sites within the websites menu.

Regards,

James.

[Daylan]

I guess a pro for a separate themed site is that you wouldn't be stuck with the contraints of keeping things on brand. EG: you could stray from standard fonts for the sake of a 'pretty' design and generally not have to worry about making one thing look like the other. Would likely give you a lot more freedom.

Another pro would be that your blog could also be perceived on it's own merits as well as that of your main site.
EG: Perhaps you have topics and content that you don't want to be directly associated with your original brand.  
If it's not directly associated with an established brand then perhaps it might attract a different audience who doesn't see the content as influence by a parent brand.

Pro's and con's for both here. Technically of course, there's no issue i can see.I guess it all boils down to brand recognition and best practice UX.