An impromptu manifesto to a colleague about Inbound Marketing

M, 

I am a firm believer of "inbound marketing" - companies such as http://www.hubspot.com have truly proven to me that the concepts of combining Social Media, Blogging, Email Marketing etc. all with amazing, relevant, and valuable can drastically increase a customer base. I understand your point, that if I was to creating content only concerning my own products and company the value would be considerably less on a subdomain of my own site/store. The content I am going to be creating is not going to be directly related to sales - It will truly be valuable to the reader - not just a sales trick. Topics like installation of parts, how to buy the right part, and troubleshooting - all extend value way above and beyond just writing about why 'My company is great' all the time. In appearing as an expert in the industry and then educating my customer I create a process that keeps them coming back, not as in a lifelong customer, as in when they are comparing the same product we sell on other websites. In educating the customer at the very top of the sales funnel, in then information gathering stage, there is a feeling of added value later on. Even if perhaps my product is 10% more than the competition I am embedded as the industry expert in the customers mind.  

3 major reasons I am hoping to find a way to host a blog on the same domain - 1. SEO, every time I publish a new article, theres a new indexable page - if that page is not on my store's domain it is not nearly worth as much. 2. Branding, the content that is going to be created will be searchable for years and years, if possible customers are accessing this information in a format and design very different than my store - I lose all kinds of branded value. Even just a customer looking up and seeing "blog.premiumstartersandalternators.com" is important for branding. 3. Centralization, to have a blog on another domain is counterintuitive - I would literally be sending potential customers to another website. My blog is supposed to be the 'bait' to attract people organically to my website, in the effort to convert them into buying customers. 

Content and the blog it lives on is basically the core of Inbound Marketing. it is the 'home base' that content gets spread out from, sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc.  and then (hopefully) shared many times over, creating a steady stream of new customers. 

I know I went a little overboard with this one - I just wanted you to see what my goal really is, as you said you were unclear.