Guest blogging discussion: To give out the best post or not

Bloggers generally agree that guest blogging is one of the best ways of creating exposure for yourself and your blog. You get your name out to a great number of potential visitors, you brand yourself as an expert in your field, you increase your traffic / RSS subscribers and it gives you good quality inbound link for SEO purposes. You also get comments from a new audience, get new ideas from their feedback and build relationship with the other blogger.

Joel Drapper: Right now though, I am finding it hard enough thinking of post ideas for my own blog. Let alone posting for others.

This comment got me thinking on how to decide what to give away as a guest post and what to keep for your own blog. Some “how to” blogs recommend to not give away your best work as a guest post. But I think that decreases your chance of getting your article approved by a popular blog and even if it is approved it might not create a lot of buzz and attention as it is not a very good quality article. This will result in a lower number of clicks to your site.

What do you think? Do you give out your best work to be published as a guest post on another blog? Or are you saving the best for your own blog? How do you choose what to offer as a guest blog post and what to publish on your own blog?

I posted the following question on Twitter earlier today:

HowToMakeMyBlog: When guest blogging: do you give the best material or do you make something up and save the best for yourself?

Image by Wolfgang Staudt