At Studio for Digital Growth, we’ve helped coaches, consultants, and service-based entrepreneurs grow their content and boost website traffic to thousands of monthly visitors from Google. But what about using LinkedIn as a blogging platform for your business? Can you achieve similar results by creating content there?
In this article, we’ll dive into the pros and cons of blogging on LinkedIn versus your business website, and share our best content marketing tips and strategies. If you’re a coach, consultant, or business owner in the services industry wondering if you should be using LinkedIn to publish and share content with your network, this guide is for you.
Blogging on Linkedin: Advantages, disadvantages and best practices
What is LinkedIn blogging?
LinkedIn blogging is using the platform’s built-in content creation tools to publish articles or other forms of online content on LinkedIn. When you publish content on LinkedIn your profile is credited as the author, which can enhance the visibility of your LinkedIn profile.
There are three different ways to blog on LinkedIn, including creating LinkedIn posts, using LinkedIn Pulse to publish articles on the platform, and lastly, article co-authorship through LinkedIn’s latest Collaborative Articles feature, which is powered by AI.
Advantages of blogging on LinkedIn
1. Instant access and promotion to a large audience through LinkedIn’s algorithm
One of the key reasons why entrepreneurs today use LinkedIn as a business blogging platform is audience access. This includes engaging with their LinkedIn network (1st-degree connections), but also the opportunity to gain new connections and followers from LinkedIn’s broader people network.
When you publish an article on LinkedIn, it’s shared with your connections and followers directly in their news feeds, and sometimes through notifications. The platform’s algorithm then amplifies the impact of their engagement, creating a network effect. Therefore, for most entrepreneurs, the primary focus of LinkedIn content creation is building their personal brand and using it to grow their connections on the platform.
In comparison, blogging on a business website typically aims to attract traffic from search engines. This approach enables you to build an organic audience over time and collect their email addresses. You can then create email campaigns to share your latest updates and content.
These methods are powerful marketing channels for a business. However, the further sharing of your content depends on individual recipients distributing it within their networks. Unlike social platforms, email does not utilize a recommendation algorithm and is not designed as a content consumption platform that leverages network effects.
2. Great for niche and non-SEO-friendly topics
LinkedIn is a great platform for instantly attracting readers with content that may otherwise not perform well on your website under typical SEO criteria. For example, topics with low organic search volume or those that are more narrative-driven, such as personal stories or industry insights, can find a home on LinkedIn.
3. Low cost to entry
Another great advantage is that LinkedIn’s blogging features are zero cost. This makes it a good option for business owners who are just getting started and want to find their footing. The cost of running and maintaining a website is significantly higher compared to that. However, a lot of that investment goes into aspects of website marketing (e.g. SEO & design, marketing funnels, automation, etc.) that are just not available or possible to do when blogging on LinkedIn. Therefore, setting up a business blog and lead magnets on your website is a rite of passage that separates start-up businesses from more mature ones.
4. User-friendly interface that doesn’t require technical expertise
If you are looking to just share your content in an easy way that does not involve any technical aspects of online publishing, LinkedIn’s interface for posting articles on Pulse is very simple and user-friendly.
5. Blogging on LinkedIn can have SEO benefits
Recent updates from Google in the first half of 2024 have shown a trend towards increasing visibility of user-generated content on platforms like LinkedIn. This is yet another example of LinkedIn content getting a boost in the search results, and it reflects a recognition of the social aspect of the internet. Furthermore, it shows that the authenticity and credibility of first-person narratives are becoming increasingly important for content performance.
Although the visibility of this content has fluctuated significantly over the years, publishing some content on LinkedIn as a complementary strategy to your business blog may be a good idea – depending on the topic and timing. At Studio for Digital Growth, we’ve coined the term #SEOBeyondWebsites to include content on social platforms, which we believe will play a bigger role in the future.
6. Social interactions bring additional reach
Readers can interact with your content directly using likes or reactions to rate an article. Additionally, they can leave comments under your blog posts, allowing you to facilitate discussions. These interactions not only enhance engagement but also increase the reach of your posts without any additional effort on your part. When third parties interact with your content, it may appear in the feeds of potential new followers, helping you to reach an audience that isn’t actively looking for content through a search engine.
Disadvantages of blogging on LinkedIn
1. Lack of control over how your content is published
According to LinkedIn’s content platform guidelines, content published on LinkedIn remains your intellectual property, as you retain the rights to any original articles you publish. However, compared to publishing on your website, your ability to optimize SEO, customize the design, and analyze traffic data is significantly limited.
Search Engine Optimization on LinkedIn is confined to the platform’s built-in capabilities, which can be a significant limitation given the basic nature of the article editor. Additionally, the Analytics provided by LinkedIn fall short compared to tools like Google Analytics. These limitations can prevent businesses from gaining a deeper understanding of their audience. It does not give you the full picture, potentially overlooking incognito readers from outside the platform.
2. Most LinkedIn content views are short-lived
LinkedIn articles typically get a quick burst of views right after they’re published, but then interest drops off quickly, just like with other social media content. In comparison, content on your own website has the potential to build momentum through SEO and accumulate views over time. As a result, LinkedIn may not be the most effective platform if you approach content marketing as a long-term asset. This might affect generating leads and brand awareness on an ongoing basis.
3. Collaborative Articles are – for lack of a better word – competition
Since their release, collaborative articles have been amassing traffic from Google, and in some cases even overtaking the rankings of established business websites.
Contributing to collaborative articlescan be detrimental to the success of your personal brand and content published on your business blog for the following reasons:
- When people find a collaborative article on Google, they see the LinkedIn profiles of up to 3 contributors listed under the “Top experts in this article” headline.
- Because you’re one of several contributors, it can be harder to stand out and establish your expertise through these types of articles.
- Collaborative articles might compete with both your business blog and your LinkedIn Pulse articles for Google traffic.
- You have limited control over the publication of your content in collaborative articles. You cannot add images or links, and since this content is generated by AI using your insights, it lacks personalized elements like call-to-actions.
- Since these articles are created by AI using your insights, there might be some copyright implications to consider. In our non-legal-expert opinion, ownership of content in collaborative articles can be less straightforward compared to individual LinkedIn Pulse articles, where copyright is more clearly defined.
If you choose to contribute to this type of content despite the limitations mentioned, we suggest sharing broader insights in a category adjacent to your niche. For example, if your niche is health, instead of giving direct health advice, consider contributing articles about the implications of a healthy lifestyle to a topic related to work performance.
This approach can help you capture the attention of new audiences while allowing you to reserve more specialized topics and in-depth knowledge for your business blog.
4. Blogging on LinkedIn for SEO is unreliable
Relying on LinkedIn content to generate traffic from search engines is unpredictable. For example, Google does not recognize content published under your LinkedIn page or profile as separate from LinkedIn itself; it’s all seen as “LinkedIn content.” Therefore, if LinkedIn content as a whole is less favored in the search results due to algorithm changes, there is little you can do to influence this.
5. Publishing polarizing content on LinkedIn is not without risks
Publishing on LinkedIn requires adherence to its content policies, which may change over time. This is particularly relevant if you express polarizing beliefs or political opinions. Therefore, if your business seeks a long-term and consistent online presence with full “ownership,” it’s important to remember that LinkedIn — and likely any other third-party platform — reserves the right to remove content that violates their policies.
Is it okay to republish your business blog content on LinkedIn?
We get asked about this a lot. The problem with republishing the same content is that Google might see it as duplicate content. Since LinkedIn is a bigger and more established site, Google may treat your website’s version as a copy. This could mean your website content won’t perform well or might not show up in search results at all. That’s why we don’t recommend reposting your content. Instead, you can share links to your website content on LinkedIn and create different original content for each platform.
Statistics from conducting a test with identical content
In 2024, we conducted a test by posting the same content as a LinkedIn blog article and also on our website in PDF format (100 SEO Keywords for Coaches). We were surprised to find that the PDF was indexed quickly and ranked better than the LinkedIn article. It appears that the website’s authority on the topic led to higher rankings compared to the content published on a third-party platform.
As you can see below, over a two-month period, the PDF achieved over 1,000 impressions in SERPs, while the LinkedIn article saw fewer than 500 impressions. Considering that we published the PDF on our website weeks after sharing the content on LinkedIn, you could argue that the PDF performed better. However, impressions don’t necessarily indicate that people engaged with the content, as reflected by the low number of clicks. The actual number of people who engaged with the content was significantly higher on LinkedIn.
Source: Google Search Console
Source: LinkedIn Data Tool
Conclusion: Website vs. LinkedIn blogging
Website and LinkedIn blogging both have their pros and cons. Let’s compare the most crucial features from a marketing and, specifically, an SEO point of view:
| Website Blog | LinkedIn Blog | |
| Starting out (initial effort) | website set-up required | instant access 💪 |
| SEO features | unlimited | meta text, image alt tag |
| Pricing | avg. 20-100 $ / € (monthly for web hosting) | free |
| Indexing | within 1-2 days | up to a couple of weeks* |
| Engagement | comments require setup ⚙️ | comments, likes, resharing, tagging |
| Audience reach | high potential | low** |
| Data insights (access) | Google Search Console or 3rd party tools required | impressions, clicks, engagement rate |
| Traffic source (attribution) | Google Analytics or 3rd party tools required | limited to “organic discovery” |
| Ease of use | customizable interface | user-friendly interface |
| Branding | your own branding guidelines | LinkedIn brand interface |
| Author profile | customizable | author profile linked |
| Monetization (via ads) | ad publishing possible | as an affiliate, no ad integration |
* Based on our own experience. SERP shows the blog meta title and meta description, but it links to the blog post, not directly to the blog article.
** Based on a test of the very same content posted on our website and as a LinkedIn blog article (see above).
His articles and interviews have appeared in digital marketing and technology publications, including USA Today, SEMRush, Digiday, Hackernoon, and databox. He has also appeared as a guest on the All About Digital Marketing podcast.
Since starting his own SEO consultancy in 2019, Konstantinos has been regularly writing about organic growth strategies on our company blog.
