Should You Share Your Content on Hosted Blog Platforms?

With so many blogging platforms available on the web, you may be wondering why you should bother with hosted blog platforms since they are not sites that are owned by your company. While it is a good idea to establish a company blog, you may also be interested in sharing your content elsewhere. Here are a few things that you should know to help you decide if you should share your content on hosted blog platforms.

Boost Link Authority

Some hosted blog platforms enjoy high rankings in the search engines. By posting your content to these high traffic sites, you may see a boost in the SEO results for your content, mainly in terms of link authority. This is because many pages across the web link to these sites and they get also get a lot of traffic. However, you should be aware that you are boosting the SEO of the hosted platform and not your own website, even if the post includes links back to your site.

Increase Shares

Many of the struggles that marketers have with executing their content marketing strategies are because they are unable to effectively promote their content. Hosted blog platforms can increase the likelihood that your content is seen and is shared by other users. Sites like LinkedIn and Medium.com are among the most popular hosted blog platforms that can help your content to be shared. However, in order to get the real benefits of these platforms, you will also need to establish your profile on these sites to build followers. You can also opt for professional content marketing experts to help boost your blog and generate more clicks and audiences.

Branding

While posting content to hosted blog platforms might be a great idea for a business that is virtually unknown, for established businesses it could have an effect on the branding of your business online. With hosted platforms, there is no way for you to completely control the UI and UX of the site. While some platforms may offer limited ways to personalize your blog on the site, in most cases there will be very little variation between user profiles for the site.

As a result, you may find that your brand becomes lost in the fuzz as users refer to your content as something that they read on Medium.com rather than the content that your business published. Users may also end up linking to your posts on the hosted blog platform rather than your own website. If you want to gain control over the branding for your hosted content, opt for a site with a more customizable experience, such as WordPress.com. However, keep in mind that regardless of where you post you will not have true ownership of your content and the site experience.

Limited Tracking

Most hosted blog platforms do not allow for content to contain code other than basic HTML tags. Tracking of the shares and traffic from the content that you post to the site may be limited. As a result, you may truly never know the impact that the hosted blog platform is having on your content marketing strategy.

While hosted blog platforms can help to increase exposure for your business, there are also many downsides. Before you incorporate these platforms into your content marketing strategy, consider these points in order to decide if they are the right option for your business.

If you are ready to extend your content marketing strategy beyond your own website, our Infintech Designs can help. We can assist you in building a comprehensive strategy that will incorporate all of the platforms and technical aspects that are needed to rank your content at the top of the search engines. To request a free quote for content marketing services, chat with Brian Hong today!