Blogging is enduringly popular. There are roughly 31.7 million blogs in the world, covering everything from marketing news (like this one) to obscure advice from the past. If you can think of a topic, someone is probably blogging about it.
Adding a blog to your business website offers a number of benefits. When you have your own blog, you have a place to publish your industry insights and news. Regular blogging can also help to increase organic traffic from search engines.
Crafting unique content is the first challenge for aspiring bloggers. We’ve shared our thoughts on how to craft quality blog posts that search engines love in the past.
The next step is knowing where to publish. Your own blog is the obvious choice, as you retain complete control over the content. But is this the best place for your content, and could it stand a better chance of being discovered elsewhere?
We’re taking a deep dive into the issue to explore the pros and cons of publishing your content in four different places.
Publishing on your website
When you publish a blog on your own website, you retain complete control. You can update it, remove it, add whatever links you want and monitor the analytics. If it ranks well, your website could enjoy a spike in traffic. This all sounds great so far, but your website might not always be the best place to hit publish.
Optimising your website for search engines is about more than just what you add to your site. Generating links to your website and social shares can be just as beneficial as the content you publish. So if you create something that you are particularly proud of, it’s helpful to consider where else you could be publishing.
Publishing on someone else’s website
Guest posting may have been overrun with spammy SEO posts, but it certainly isn’t dead yet. There’s still plenty of room for guest posting done right. By sharing your content on another website, you might lose some of the control and may even be handing website traffic to another domain. But you could also benefit from referral traffic from other sources. And this comes with added exposure to new audiences.
A key component of SEO is building links to your website, and this is one of the primary goals of guest posting. But don’t ignore the possibility that you could also connect with a new audience. Research opportunities well before you hand over any content and think of this as a way to build relationships with fellow bloggers.
Publishing on LinkedIn
If you’re hoping your article might generate likes, shares and similar buzz, then sharing it directly to LinkedIn might be more appropriate. If you’re interested in boosting your personal profile, publishing content is a surefire way to get noticed as each one of your connections will receive a notification.
Publishing on LinkedIn will give you the chance to be seen as an authority in your sector and your article could make its way into the Pulse, which will amplify the reach. The obvious disadvantage is that any traffic generated will not be for your website, so you’ll have to make sure you’re making the most of CTAs.
Publishing on Medium
If you’re hoping to make money from your content and you think you might have a popular piece of content to share, Medium could be the ideal place for it. Medium offers a subscription model for readers that rewards creators for claps and shares. So the more views and applause your article gets, the more you could earn.
Sharing on Medium will limit your audience if you want to monetise your content. This is because monetised content is often placed behind a paywall and users can only access 3 locked articles per month. You’ll also need to be a paying member to monetise your content, and this will cost $5 per month.
So, which is best?
There are pros and cons to publishing on any of these platforms. Instead of taking an all-or-nothing approach, consider spreading your content across multiple platforms to make the most of everything available.