Opinion Please-Best SEO Practice On Hosting My Blog

[Doug D]

Hey Guys/Gals,
I have an e-commerce site, where I sell goods, yes...with a shopping cart and all. I am going to add a blog for this site, and I would really appreciate it if someone a little more seo, "tech" savvy then myself, could tell me what would be the optimum set-up, "seo" wise. Here is where I am at:
Our storefront will not allow us to set up a sub-domain for a blog because we have no access to the code/pages of that sub-domain. However, we can set up a sub-domain as a 301 redirect. So, if we setup a blog as a sub-domain, blog.domain.com and then set it as a 301 redirect to blog-name.wordpress.com will that be the best effective way from an seo standpoint? OR should we set up an entirely separate domain that we host and just utilize a wordpress template, so it would be blog-name.com.
Thank you in advance...for anyone that takes the time to help me out here.
Doug

[dvduval]

So is the main question whether or not you will host the blog at wordpress.com or not?

[Doug D]

Thanks dvduval...for asking,
What I am asking is, basically I have three options, and I want to determine what would be best from an "seo" standpoint. So, I have:
1. Host on wordpress.com?
2. subdomain on my site, with 301 redirect to wordpress or entirely different domain?
3. Totally separate domain...hosted by me?
Doug

[Droopy Dawg]

I'de create a seperate domain (keyword-rich) that points to the main ecom store. link every post to the main store. bookmark every post.

Create a wordpress blog in your new domain and s.e. optimize every post you make... by using some of the great SEO plugins (all-in-one seo plugin and the auto-tagger).

JMO

[Doug D]

Thanks Droop,
Ya, that is what I might end up doing. If I could I would host it within my ecomm store, it's just that the shopping cart is problematic.
Thanks for taking the time,
Doug

[banker0679]

placing tags on post is not a good idea

Tags are actual links that point to the tag page

if you write a post then have 10 tags....that will be 10 links leaking your juice

if what Matt Cutts stated about nofollow is true...then it wouldnt matter if you have a nofollow on the tags...
you'll still be leaking juice 10 different ways.

Originally Posted by Droopy Dawg

I'de create a seperate domain (keyword-rich) that points to the main ecom store. link every post to the main store. bookmark every post.

Create a wordpress blog in your new domain and s.e. optimize every post you make... by using some of the great SEO plugins (all-in-one seo plugin and the auto-tagger).

JMO

[banker0679]

the options should be in this order for SEO best practices

1. Create a subfolder
domain.com/blog

2. Create a subdomain
blog.domain.com

3. Create a new domain or new website that will be dedicated to the blog.
domainblog.com

last resort is to host it at wordpress or blogspot.....i dont see why anyone would
WP or Blogspot can remove your content w/out prior approval or notice.
You'll lose everything like that.

Doing a 301 redirect from a subdomain to a new domain makes no sense
Google views subdomains as a NEW Domain so there will be no point in doing this.
Google views a subfolder as part of the domain and this is why this is the #1 choice.

Creating a new domain can be picked by
1. Exact Match domain
2. Old domain
3. keywords in domain

with 1 and 2 being tied..and will depend on the situation

[AlexTampa]

Originally Posted by Droopy Dawg

I'de create a seperate domain (keyword-rich) that points to the main ecom store. link every post to the main store. bookmark every post.

I have seen this result in -100 positions

What you should do is link once from homepage, and build a string valuable site