spoongraphics

I was thinking the other day; "I wonder how differently my site would have performed if it was created under a different name/brand".

Blog.SpoonGraphics (pronounced 'blog dot spoon graphics' ) was originally created as (and still is) a base for my personal experiment, therefore it was attached onto my personal portfolio website; Spoon Graphics.

It seems design blogs out there fall into one of two styles;
Personal Websites (as with Blog.SpoonGraphics): RandaClay.com, David Airey.com, GoMediaZine.com (GoMediaZine is an addon to the design company GoMedia but has it's own domain), etc

Uniquely Branded Websites: You The Designer, BittBox, Web Designer Wall, etc

Do you think the uniquely branded sites give a better image and/or perform better than blogs attached to personal sites?
Do you think it doesn't make any difference considering there are a lot of well performing personal sites?

Discuss.


PS. Also do you think basing Blog.SpoonGraphics as a .com domain rather than .co.uk would have been beneficial? (Not that I would change now after developing the .co.uk, but it'll be interesting to hear your thoughts!)

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Blog.SpoonGraphics - Design Tutorials, Graphic Design Articles and Free Vector Downloads

Gino

I think there are specific reasons behind creating each. Personal blogs are usually created to promote their design portfolio and get new design work.

Uniquely branded websites like mine and the others mentioned are created for making profit off of advertisements and are not trying to drive traffic to a portfolio, but rather sponsors sites and other websites.

Most personal blogs have no advertisements or very few and just focus on building their name up so people respect their work more.

Branded websites still want to provide useful information to users and build a name, but they are not trying to drive traffic to a portfolio site as mentioned.

I think both types of websites can become large, its just a matter of how hard the person behind them is working towards expanding.

As far as your website goes I think it depends on your target audience, since you are based in the UK i think your .co.uk is fine, but if you in general .com is better for very large websites for the sole fact that .com is easier to remember above all other types of domains.

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CORPORATE IDENTITY CREATION //GRAPHIC DESIGN BLOG // T SHIRT BLOG

spoongraphics

Good points there, it's true about gaining new design work - I've had a few emails regarding work from my site, it's just a shame I don't have the time to freelance along with full time employment! Still, I suppose the exposure is nice

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Blog.SpoonGraphics - Design Tutorials, Graphic Design Articles and Free Vector Downloads

seanHodge

I don't think it makes a difference in some situations. I think that you can have a subdomain site that is set up for making profit and driving new work. I think that you can a uniqely branded site set up for driving refereals and making ad money. I think as Gino pointed at one makes a little more sense than the other.

Long-term though there could be issues with a sight set up as a subdomain of your main site. What if your services and your other site grow apart? What if you want to sell your blog?

I think it gives more flexibility to create projects with there own domain names and branding. I don't think there is any downside to doing this except the cost of another domain. That being said I didn't even realize your website was blog.spoongraphics (sub domain site) and I've been going there a while. I really like the site by the way.

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Sean Hodge
AiBURN - Illustrator On Fire
Connection Cube - Graphic and Web Design Services