This is an article about “Add-on domain vs Subdomain vs Subdirectory”. It’s a reply to a member’s question.

Here’s her question:

“Hi Kenneth, just like to know exactly what is the difference between an add-on and a sub domain, and what do you use each one for? I know you can host several different websites, or pages but, which do you use for what?” - Glenda

Hi Glenda, an add-on domain is a new domain, such as domain123.com, domain456.com, domain567.com. You have to buy a new domain name whenever you want to add an add-on domain to your hosting account. A sub-domain is a domain derived from your existing domain. Let’s say your existing domain is domain123.com, you can have unlimited sub-domain such as abc.domain123.com, xyz.domain123.com and so on.

Whenever you want to start a new project, there are 3 types of website structure you can consider.

1) A brand new domain (i.e. an add-on domain)
2) A subdomain
3) A subdirectory (simply a sub-folder of your domain)

If you are starting a new project in a completely different niche, it’s obvious that you should buy a new domain and host it as an add-on domain. But if you are starting a new project in the same niche, you will have to think which of the 3 structures above you should adopt.
Let’s say you have a website called esuccessonline.com, and you are thinking of starting a blog related to online success, you have 3 options to structure your new blog.

1) A brand new domain - you can call it esuccessonlineblog.com
2) A subdomain - you can call it blog.esuccessonline.com
3) A subdirectory - you can call it esuccessonline.com/blog

Below are some issues you should consider when deciding which option to choose.

1) From SEO perspective

If your original website esuccessonline.com is already well established, with a decent PR, you may NOT want to start a brand new domain just for your blog. This means option 1 is out.

If you use option 2 or 3, you can pass the credibility of your original domain to your blog, which is in either a subdomain or subdirectory. This will help your new blog and subsequent blog posts to get ranked in the search engines faster and better. Also your new blog content will help boost your original website. So it’s a win-win situation.

2) From branding perspective

If you plan to brand your blog in the future, then you should start a new domain called esuccessonlineblog.com. In general, as long as you intend to brand your new project as a new entity, it’s always a good idea to register a new domain for it.

3) “Expandability” issues

If you envision that your blog is going to be very big and it may require a lot of server resources, then it may be a good idea to start your blog in a new domain or subdomain, not a subdirectory.

To understand why, let me explain the technical difference between a subdomain and subdirectory. A subdomain can be technically treated as a new domain, in the sense that it can be hosted separately from its root domain. This means you can have blog.esuccessonline.com and esuccessonline.com hosted on different servers. But this cannot be done for esuccessonline.com/blog.

As such, if you expect your blog (or whatever new project you have) to consume a lot of server resources, your current server may not be sufficient to satisfy your needs. In such case, if you start your new project in a new domain or subdomain, you can always host it on another server in the future.

One good example is Google.com. Google.com is a brand. Everything it does must enhance its brand “Google”. So when Google started Google Map, which obviously requires a lot of server resources, it only has 2 choices. Google can either call it GoogleMaps.com or maps.google.com.

And you should know their decision. It’s logical to make that decision too. They call it maps.google.com.

4) To boost your Alexa ranking

More and more people, especially in the internet marketing niche, look at the Alexa ranking of a website as a means to gauge the credibility of the website. So if you want to boost the Alexa ranking of your website, it may be a good idea to put all your projects under one domain. This means you can either use a subdomain or subdirectory.

Take Google and Yahoo as a case study. Google names its international websites in separate domains, such as google.com.sg, but Yahoo names its international websites as a subdomain, such as sg.yahoo.com. The result is yahoo.com is now ranked #1 in Alexa ranking. I believe if Google were to consolidate all its international websites under google.com., it should rank #1 in Alexa ranking.

The Conclusion?

There is no conclusion. It really depends on what you want to do now and in the future. New domain costs money but it looks professional. Subdomain is free and it’s technically as flexible as a new domain, but it’s not as professional. Yet, if you want to create a mega website like Google.com, subdomain can give you a lot of leverage. Subdirectory is the simplest option for website structuring. If branding and server requirement are non-issue, it’s always easier to just use a subdirectory.

After reading my previous post on The Truth About Creating A Passive Income Online, someone asked me this question, “Can Blogging Create Passive Income?”

To answer this question, first of all, we must understand what is blogging.

To me, blogging is just another traffic strategy, something like article marketing.

Assuming you have not done anything to your blog, no link, no promotion, no JV, a blog post is just another piece of content lying somewhere on the net. If you’re lucky, someone may find the post through the search engine and read it. If not, it will just be another digital dust.

When the gurus tell you that you can make money from blogging, what he is really saying is you can make money by leaving tons of ‘content footprint’ on the net. The more ‘content footprint’ you have on the net, the more traffic you are likely to attract.

(Sidenote: That’s the reason why I started LeadsLeap Blog - to create a large content footprint so as to attract more traffic and benefit our members who show their ads in this blog.)

As I’ve said, blogging is just another traffic strategy. It’s what you do with the traffic that determines whether you can create a passive income from it.

So can blogging create passive income? My ‘immediate’ answer is - it depends on what you do with the traffic to your blog.

Blogging Myth 101

Many years back, when the idea of internet marketing first started, there was a myth that says “Built it and traffic will come”. ‘it’ refers to a website.

People started building different kinds of websites, only to realize that their websites are only visited by ghosts.

Years later, history repeats.

The concept of blogging was introduced and everyone starts to blog. The myth now becomes “Blog and traffic will come”.

People started to blog about different things under the sun, only to realize that they are just talking to themselves.

So can blogging create passive income? My ‘better’ answer is - it depends on whether you can generate ‘passive traffic’ to your blog and what you do with the ‘passive traffic’.

What Should You Do With The Traffic So As To Create Passive Income?

Assuming you know how to generate passive traffic to your blog, the next challenge is how to monetize the traffic so that you can earn passive income.

Here is what you can do:

1) Sell advertising space

Unless you have a very popular blog, chances are no one will advertise directly with you. The easiest way to start selling your advertising space is by putting Google Ads on your blog.

As your blog becomes more popular, you can find your own advertisers and earn more.

2) Sell affiliate products

I’m not talking about selling ebooks. If you want to build a passive income, you should promote products or services that can earn you recurring commissions.

Some examples are web hosting services, autoresponder services, network marketing products and membership programs.

For non-internet marketing niche, try to promote membership programs that can generate recurring commissions for you every month.

3) Sell your own products

Eventually, you want to sell your own products through your blog, preferably a membership program so that you can build another recurring income.

Selling your own product has another advantage because you can recruit affiliates and generate more traffic to your blog.

4) Position your blog as a brand

This is the ultimate thing you should do with your blog to create long term passive income.

Do you know why companies spend so much money on branding? Because people prefer to buy from brands that they are familiar with.

Once your blog becomes a brand by itself, every other things will fall into places. Your traffic will increase beyond your wildest dream. Advertisers will be queuing to pay you. Your sales will soar. And more importantly, you can employ people to produce the content.

This is when your blog truly becomes a passive income source for you.