Guest blog better than owned blog?

[CleanEdisonInc]

Say I write a great article about The Best Colleges at X

and in the article there is a keyword linking to www.mydomain.com/productX

my hunch is that it would actually be better for www.mydomain.com/productX if the article wasn't promoted to the colleges through www.mydomain.com/blog - instead it was promoted through www.yourdomain.com/blog

my thinking is that the authority of another site linking to /productX with a popular post is higher than my own domain linking to /productX with a popular post.

Am I right? Does it not matter? Am I completely wrong?

[ThompsonPaul]

As long as the "other guy's" page gets lots of attention and drives as much or more value to your product page as your own blog could have, then nope - in my opinion it doesn't matter. The problem occurs when a not-so-authoritative blog outranks you with your own content but doesn't send ya much value.

You're right to focus on the end goal which is improved rankings for the product page (and then improved conversions from those visitors!).

Sounds like your site is really cookin'. Good luck!

Paul

<object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="undefined"> <param name="counter" value="163"></object>

[CleanEdisonInc]

Yes, I have started developing some very strong relationships, so I have a good stream of my stuff being linked to from elsewhere and requests to have guest posts on mine (takes some pressure off, lol).

As far as the "credit" - One time I had an article re-posted on a super-authoritative blog and it got a ton of comments, likes, tweets, etc...

In the article was a link to my product page - which shot to the first page and has held steady at number 4 for over a month

So, even though another blog got the "credit" (if you type in the name of the article my blog is nowhere to be found)  - I got what I really wanted. In other words, even though I really enjoy doing research and writing good content, my main goal is to get the product pages to rank highly, not the blog.

So given that, does it matter which version of the article gets the "credit"?

[ThompsonPaul]

We're thinking alike, Avraam. The one additional thing to think about doing... Since you've assessed the other blogs as being related and valuable, maybe you can start developing a relationship with them so that when you write on your own site, it's valuable enough for them to link to from one of their own pages. Then you're getting the best of both worlds.

Also to consider - if you're getting others to repost your articles, you run the very real chance that their website's will get the "credit" in Google - i.e. become the primary result for your content. Not a good thing.

Search Engines are "supposed" to be able to give credit to the original piece of content. But in my experience, unless you're a very authoritative site to start with, others can and often do rank higher for your own content than you do. Having them repost your content just to earn the backlink probably isn't the best way to go about it.

Paul <object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="ff-tab-17"> <param name="counter" value="152"></object>

[CleanEdisonInc]

Yes that definitely helps, thank you.

I think I may be putting too much emphasis on the power of the domain, and not enough on the power of the page itself.

I've been trying to get a bunch of other blogs of the same subject to re-post my articles, thereby adding to the number of linking root domains.

But you're saying that it may be more worth my time to focus getting any one of those (or even my own blog) to get a lot of shares, likes, tweets, etc... and build the authority of the linking page itself.

Makes sense

[ThompsonPaul]

You're essentially talking about 2 different purposes for the article, Avraam.

Posting your guest post on an outside site may mean that the individual link might carry more juice than the link from your internal page.

BUT! The big question is whether the external page will have as much authority as your internal page. If you can get your own blog's page ranked and attracting links, it can develop strong authority. Then, when you link from it to your product page, you are passing more juice than an external page that is just posted and then ignored.

It's unlikely you'd want to spend as much energy promoting the external site as you wold promoting your own page. And if the other site doesn't work to raise their page's authority, a guest post by itself doesn't bring you much benefit. (Unless the other site is so powerful that your guest post gets enough of a "halo" of authority.)

There's no right or wrong answer here. If "colleges" is completely unrelated to your site except for the potential use of that one product, the guest post might be better. If people might be looking to your site for "colleges" info as it relates to your product, I'd put the post on your own site and work to build some authority for your own page so it's link to your product page is more powerful. Or write another related post and do one of each

That help?

Paul

<object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="ff-tab-6"> <param name="counter" value="98"></object>

[DaveMri]

You should do both. External and internal links are valuable if the content around them is relevant and unique. Depending on the quality of the external blog, that link might be more valuable.