Backlink. You want people to go to your site and talk to you.

More exposure, but be careful with duplicate content.

Personally I just stick with the AR blog, and share on other social media.

Well, it used to get better ranking than the general AR blog for me at least. Can't say that lately. 

IT really depends on if you OWN those things that could control the destiny of your busienss. Ben could decide, "No more blogs on Active Rain." What would happen to your business then? Prepare and plan as though for that outcome.

I am assuming you are talking about your AR outside blog? If so, you should. I don't know why you would not post to your outside blog if it is about the topic your outside blog is about. 

I no longer do this and haven't for years.

First, it's duplicate content...which MAY hurt you, but regardless, you will in general only show on on the SERPs for 1 of 2 places.  and, if I had to choose between here or outside blog, I would choose here (although the much better option is your own site that you own).

I think the formatting and flexibility on the outside blog stinks. And, it's not mobile friendly, so why take a chance on having that be the one to show on google?

Now all that aside, they may improve outside blogs. Or, on the otherhand, they may drop them.

So, IMO, it's smarter to just have it on here.

But, as I said before, much smarter to have your own WP blog.

Yoda says...do or dont do there is no try. Go with his sage

Hopefully  Debbie Gartner  and / or Nestor & Katerina Gasset  will weigh in on this topic.

I think the issue with the outside blogs is duplicate content. And for a while the appearance/formatting was an issue. Perhaps Bob Stewart can weigh in when he has time

It is another site your post can appear on.

My web company said it takes away from my google juice.

Sorry I didn't get a chance to answer this yesterday. And thank you to the few people that tagged me.

Michael, let me see if I can explain.

Outside blogs were originally intended for ActiveRain members to be able to publish their content on their own domain. The highest and best use of an Outside blog is when that blog is targeted to something specific.

For example, Bill and Liz Spear have an outside blog all about patio homes in warren county ohio. So even though they write a ton of other content that is not specific to patio homes in warren county, they only send content to their outside blog that focuses on this niche they have chosen. In that way, when google indexes their outside blog, it sees that the domain has a focus.

All of the other content they create either just stays inside ActiveRain, or gets sent to a second outside blog they have that is more inclusive of their entire business.

When you send a post to your outside blog, we add code to the post on ActiveRain telling the search engines that the content is in more than one place, and that the search engine should consider your outside blog domain to the originating source of that content. In this way, you don't get penalized for duplicate content (although duplicate content penalties aren't really designed for this kind of thing and really don't impact a content creator placing their own content in more than one place, assuming you tell Google what is the original source).

What ended up happening for many, is they just send everything to their outside blog and so it has zero focus (unless you are a highly focused blogger by nature).

I wrote this post earlier this year. It loosely covers the concept of outside blogs. Finding a niche in 2016.

parked and reading

I do not know.

Exposure for one

Additional exposure is the goal but I am uncertain as to reality.

Annette Lawrence , Palm Harbor, FL 727-420-4041 makes an important point. Aad at minimum sharing to other sites gets you more exposure.

I rarely share my post via outside blog. I do not know any good reason to do so.

???Any?

I think it is a very good question and will watch for more answers... I personally have no idea!

Michael J. Perry - why should you NOT? There are advantages in doing so....

Stopped by to see which direction your answer sways toward.  Right now I'm only using Active Rain.  Always heard that sharing the same article on different sites could be a downfall.  Will come back tomorrow for more feedback. 

I'm not a fan of this technique.  I feel like I'm being manipulated.

great question

Additional exposure and every little bit helps.

I think the outside blog is unsupported Michael. Maybe we can get Bob Stewart to chime in on this questions?

The backlink as Sam Shueh said, but also you should probably post the entire blog on your outside site and a snippet on AR so your site shows as the main source.

I used to think it went ot the public but if you are a Rainmaker, you get the choice of public or members only.

I want them to but not all blogs are designed for the public

Good question. 

I had been re-writing and backlinking to a WordPress site but I don't really see the benefit.

What Annette Lawrence , Palm Harbor, FL 727-420-4041 said.  

Now is this the same Blog that you have written for AR, and are just sharing it with members and clients Michael J. Perry?  I would think a real estate Blog should be acceptable and informative to be read by both groups, while a more personal not business-related Blog would just be for members?  I will have to read replies below . . .