I currently have a blog setup as a subdomain on my website as, to my knowledge, it’s the only way to use a different WordPress theme. Am I able to setup another WordPress installation on my current WordPress site ex. www.mydomain.com/blog, and use a different theme in this subdirectory? Or does the theme of the subdirectory have to inherit directly from my current WP theme on the main site?
Right now I have it setup as:
- www.mainsite.com
- blog.mainsite.com
This seems to be the only way to have separate themes, however the SEO is killing me.
It’s probably not the best idea, but you can absolutely create a second install in a subdirectory.
If you create a /blog subdirectory and install WordPress there, you’ll have a whole new site, with a whole new WP dashboard.
example.com/wp-admin/
and
example.com/blog/wp-admin/
You could set up the new WP config to read the WordPress core from the parent install, allowing you to only install the themes/plugins you need for the secondary install.
Honestly, Multisite is probably a better idea — you’ll be able to manage both sites from the same dashboard — but what you’re trying to do is possible with either approach.
