Content marketing is crucial for reaching new customers and strengthening your brand’s online presence. While valuable on your website, your content often needs a boost to reach a wider audience. This is where content syndication can help. When used as part of your content strategy, content syndication can supercharge your content marketing efforts and maximize your return on investment.
- Definition of Content Syndication
- Advantages of Content Syndication
- Best Types of Content for Syndication
- Effective Strategies for Content Syndication
- Organic vs. Service-Based Content Syndication: Scaling Your Reach
- Balancing Google’s Original Content Preferences with Syndication
- Content Syndication vs. Guest Posting: Key Differences
What Is Content Syndication?
Content syndication is republishing your existing content on third-party platforms. These platforms can be industry websites, online publications, or social media sites. This is done with permission and often includes links back to your original content, increasing brand awareness.
Syndicating content, however, differs from guest posting. It’s not about creating entirely new material for a different platform; it’s about sharing web content. Think of it like sharing a news article. The article is already published on one site, but others pick it up for wider distribution, crediting the original source and often linking back to it.
Why Is Content Syndication Important?
Content syndication helps businesses reach a broader audience beyond their website. It’s a strategic approach to amplifying your content’s visibility, helping increase traffic and making it a powerful lead generation tool. This increased exposure translates into potential customers discovering your business and offering.
Consider a recent blog post. When you syndicate that content to platforms with a similar audience, it creates more pathways for potential customers to discover your brand. Essentially, you are strategically placing your valuable content in front of people already looking for information and solutions related to your niche.
Benefits of Content Syndication
Strategically syndicating content offers many benefits for brands looking to boost brand visibility. Content syndication can help establish thought leadership and enhance SEO performance. It can also drive revenue and make the most out of your content strategy.
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Boost Your Brand’s Visibility and Reach a Wider Audience
Think of the internet as a vast sea of information, with potential customers scattered across various islands, or online platforms. Now imagine each piece of syndicated content as a boat carrying your brand’s message to these islands.
With every instance of content syndication, you send out another boat, increasing your chances of reaching those who may have never stumbled upon your content otherwise. It’s like casting a wider net. By leveraging established platforms with a dedicated audience, you are tapping into an existing readership interested in your industry and what you offer.
IntoTheMinds found that 65% of B2B marketers who scaled their content marketing with syndication experienced increased reach. These aren’t just random visitors; they’re individuals more likely to be interested in your niche. It’s not just about increasing the sheer number of eyeballs on your content but about reaching a targeted audience actively seeking the kind of information you offer.
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Establish Your Brand as a Thought Leader in Your Industry
Content syndication positions your brand as a go-to authority in your field. When you consistently share insightful and valuable content across various platforms, it creates a perception of expertise and credibility. Readers start associating your brand with in-depth knowledge and unique perspectives, positioning your business as a thought leader.
Think of it as becoming a regular contributor to industry magazines or websites. People recognize and trust these publications, lending credibility to the authors featured within them. In much the same way, being featured on reputable platforms increases your brand’s perceived authority and establishes thought leadership.
By consistently delivering valuable information through diverse avenues, you are cultivating a reputation for being a reliable source in your industry. This can establish your brand as one of the industry leaders that consumers can rely on.
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Improve Your SEO Performance and Organic Visibility
From an SEO perspective, content syndication is like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to your website. Backlinks are a fundamental part of SEO, acting as votes of confidence from other sites. These backlinks from credible platforms signal to search engines that your website holds valuable information. This can positively impact your website’s domain authority and search engine rankings.
Increased organic traffic then leads to greater visibility for your brand. Let’s consider a real-life scenario. Scott Mathson, Senior Web Strategy and SEO Manager at Auth0, uses content syndication as part of his SEO strategy. Over time, he saw significant results as Auth0’s backlink profile went from 200,000 to 4.4 million.
Content syndication, when used alongside other SEO techniques like internal linking, can substantially amplify the positive signals sent to search engines, increasing your website’s authority and online visibility. As you increase brand awareness, Google Search will start to recognize your content and website more.
Types of Content That Work Well for Syndication
Different types of content can be successfully syndicated to various platforms. Consider your target audience’s preferences to create even more impactful content for content syndication. This will help with the success of your syndication tactics.
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Blog Posts
A well-written blog post offering insightful and relevant information to your audience, published on your site can be reposted (with permission) or repurposed for platforms like Medium, LinkedIn articles, or industry-related websites.
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Infographics and Visual Content
Visual content such as infographics, charts, and data visualizations are ideal for sharing on visually-oriented platforms like Pinterest. “Even if sites don’t want to syndicate an entire article, they may still be open to sharing your visual content since it can complement their existing piece and help boost the engagement on their page,” said Sara McGuire, Content Lead at Venngage.
They successfully used visual content at Venngage to grow their website traffic by 400%.
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Videos
Engaging video content works well for platforms like YouTube or even as part of LinkedIn posts. Short clips highlighting key takeaways from longer videos work well for platforms like TikTok or Instagram.
Content Syndication Best Practices for a Successful Strategy
Content syndication is about amplifying your content’s reach. This strategy should carefully consider several key aspects. These factors determine if search engines view your content favorably. It also helps readers see the value. It all begins with choosing where you want to syndicate your content.
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Carefully Select Relevant Platforms for Syndication
You could opt for a syndication network. Syndication networks operate like content distribution hubs partnering with various sites to republish content. When choosing a network, look at their reach, the quality of websites within the network, and if their audience aligns with your ideal customer profile.
Another option is collaborating with non-competing businesses with overlapping audiences. These collaborations often mean partnering with businesses in a complementary niche. If your content can benefit their readership, you might explore a content exchange, where both parties agree to share each other’s content.
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Understand Your Syndication Goals
Before you start sending your content out for republication, define your goals. This might be anything from boosting brand awareness or establishing yourself as an industry expert, generating leads, or driving traffic to a specific landing page. When choosing where to syndicate, prioritize quality over quantity.
If you mainly want higher search engine rankings, focus on reputable platforms with a high Domain Authority. Choose platforms specializing in lead generation or have strong calls to action on their pages for lead generation. If driving traffic back to your site is important, make sure those platforms are open to backlinks to your site.
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Use Canonical Tags for SEO
It is important to tell Google which version of an article it should treat as the original when republishing content on multiple platforms. You don’t want your original content competing with its syndicated counterparts. It is good for both your site’s health and for ethical content distribution.
Ensure that the sites where your content is syndicated use canonical tags. Canonical tags essentially signal to search engines which version of the content should be considered the primary source. It’s like telling Google, “Hey, these two articles are essentially the same; this one is the original, so give it the credit.”
Using canonical tags helps maintain the integrity of your original content while maximizing the benefits you get from syndication. This ensures the platform serves the originally published piece to search engines, rather than the syndicated piece.
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Strike a Balance Between Paid and Organic Content Syndication
Organic content syndication focuses on building relationships with other sites to feature your work. It involves manual effort like emailing website owners and editors, and it might take time to establish a successful approach. But over time, it can yield great results for both SEO and overall content visibility.
Paid content syndication, however, offers faster results. Platforms like Outbrain and Taboola enable brands to feature their content as recommendations on high-authority websites such as CNN, BBC, and The Guardian. If you opt for a paid content syndication strategy, research the right platforms to fit your budget and target demographic. This ensures your content reaches the right people in your desired timeframe. You might prioritize one strategy over the other based on factors like budget limitations or time sensitivity.
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Measure the Effectiveness of Your Syndication
Content syndication, when approached strategically, offers a significant return on investment. B2B marketers, who leverage content marketing in their strategy, notice a five-times increase in conversion rates. 78% of those B2B marketersuse keyword research, further improving their organic reach through content. Syndication, like all marketing efforts, needs tracking and analysis to determine what works and areas needing improvement. Consider using analytics platforms to help.
Look at key performance indicators such as:
Metric Description Referral Traffic This metric tracks visits to your site coming directly from links on external sources where you have syndicated your content. A sudden surge in traffic can indicate which syndicated content successfully attracts new readers. Lead Generation How many leads were generated from the traffic you received through your syndicated content? Track the number of sign-ups for your email list or form submissions to measure. Social Media Engagement Is your syndicated content generating likes, comments, or shares? Analyze the performance of your social posts with syndicated content. Use insights gained to understand what resonates. -
Content Syndication: Scaling Your Reach Organically Versus Using Services
Content syndication, with a solid strategy and execution, has the potential to propel your marketing efforts. Understanding the intricacies of organic reach and content syndication services lets you leverage the right methods.
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Understanding Organic Content Syndication
You essentially wear two hats with organic content syndication. You are not just a content creator; you are an active participant in distributing it across different platforms. It means rolling up your sleeves to reach out to website owners, engage in online communities within your niche, and optimize your content to be easily shareable.
Think of organic content syndication as nurturing relationships. Respond to comments and questions, participate in industry discussions, and establish yourself as a valuable voice in the digital landscape. These actions attract potential readers to your website and make them see you as someone they can trust for their information.
One advantage of syndication is scalability compared to methods like guest posting, says digital marketing entrepreneur Neil Patel. He found that reposting blog content from the Kissmetrics website (now part of NeilPatel.com) on high-profile platforms such as Entrepreneur and Search Engine Journal led to increased traffic of 9,492 visitors a month. Despite a drop in organic traffic after Google’s Panda Update, strategically reposting this older content proved that valuable content, distributed well, could attract readers. While both organic syndication and guest posting offer great opportunities to build links, organic content syndication tends to be less labor-intensive.
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The Role of Content Syndication Services
Content Syndication Services specialize in connecting businesses with a vast network of publishers actively seeking quality content. Instead of manually searching for suitable platforms, you leverage an established infrastructure ready to push your content. It eliminates a large portion of the legwork often involved with manual outreach, making the syndication process faster.
Consider ActualTech Media’s service. They help get your content seen by targeting specific users instead of just generally blasting it on social media. Like carefully planning an email marketing strategy to target specific accounts – B2B lead generation often uses, it’s about sending your content directly to those who’ll find it most relevant. ActualTech leverages B2B lead generation strategies by sharing assets like ebooks and webinars directly with potential customers.
Balancing Google’s Preference for Original Content With Syndication
Google prefers original content; however, strategically approaching syndication doesn’t mean falling out of Google’s good graces.
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Syndicating Content While Avoiding SEO Penalties
Respect the value of original content. Duplicate content penalties aren’t what Google aims to do with content online. Their algorithms aim to deliver a variety of content to searchers. So, even Google states that syndicating content is OK if you follow certain guidelines.
Be upfront. Don’t try to disguise syndicated material as unique content. It also benefits readers when they can see a piece resonating across several platforms. They can see valuable, insightful material multiple places are talking about.
There are practical ways to syndicate content correctly without worrying about harming your search rankings:
- When you agree on a new partnership, communicate your terms and expectations. Outline clear expectations, include your requirements for proper attribution with a link, and clearly define whether your syndicated content can include a link to their site. This ensures you’re on the same page before your content goes live, protecting your site’s authority.
- In addition to using rel=”canonical,” check how the content displays in their content management system. Is the formatting different, do internal links lead back to their internal content instead of your suggested edits, or have they failed to properly give you attribution and links back? While a little time-consuming, check a few to make sure.
- When pursuing content syndication through platforms like Medium or LinkedIn, prioritize cross-posting your highest performing articles or content that can easily incorporate internal links to relevant areas of your website. If they get picked up for features, this has the potential for those internal backlinks to increase in authority, benefiting your SEO.
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Understanding rel=”canonical” vs. The “noindex” Tag
While Google understands both tags, when syndicating, aim to prioritize the “rel=canonical” tag over the noindex tag. You still get traffic, link authority, and recognition when Google properly understands this attribute. A “noindex” tag won’t give you those benefits.
When it comes to selecting between a rel=canonical tag and the noindex tag for syndicated content, err on the side of rel=canonical. Google’s algorithms are quite sophisticated when interpreting these signals, making it a more reliable choice for maintaining both visibility and proper content attribution.
As digital marketing expert Neil Patel emphasizes, “Between the rel=canonical and the noindex tag, always push for the rel=canonincal tag because Google is great at interpreting the rel=canonical tag”.
A Real-World Example: UniverseToday.com
A good example is this “steal our content … please” page from UniverseToday.com. It outlines simple terms for reposting articles with proper credit and a link. They use humor, tell the potential syndication partners exactly how to do it, and emphasize building a larger space community together. Not every site has to do it like this, however.
How Content Syndication Is Different From Guest Posting
While both forms of content marketing help you reach new audiences, they differ greatly in strategy, execution, and overall goal.
Defining Key Differences for a Stronger Strategy
Both strategies contribute towards amplifying content visibility. The real difference lies in their approach to achieving that. It is similar to understanding the dynamic between advertising and public relations.
Content syndication, much like PR, thrives on building relationships. Whereas guest blogging operates like an advertisement – a one-time investment for brand visibility on a specific platform. Knowing where your efforts should go for what results can dramatically elevate your overall content marketing efforts.
Content syndication, however, involves less work for both the writer and the publication. Whereas the writer typically invests all the work with guest blogging, they will provide content in exchange for promotion on the publisher’s site and links. Content syndication often favors both sides agreeing to republish. Buffer, for example, developed a content syndication outreach email. This one email goes out to republishing partners with links to the original Buffer content published earlier.
Guest posting success also lies in crafting engaging content with practical value, not unlike creating the best cold email possible for drumming up B2B clients. This can be a great way to share content with new audiences. The article originally appeared on your site, but now it is featured on another website that your target audience trusts.
For example, platforms like Medium reward good writers for great, unique content by showcasing them as featured stories. These articles must go through rigorous standards, with edits from top editors on staff. Once accepted, featured stories often get wider reach, a greater potential to be seen by readers, and often the potential to attract new followers for the writer’s profile on Medium. A potential content syndication opportunity lies in finding popular articles that already rank high, are picked up as a Medium feature, and allow you to use a relevant backlink.
Final Thought
Content syndication, approached correctly, provides many opportunities. Always be aware of potential SEO issues when using content syndication and get those addressed upfront. By partnering with relevant websites and thought leaders in your field, and always putting quality, ethical content creation first, content syndication will benefit your brand. With each thoughtfully crafted and skillfully distributed piece, you strengthen your presence, expand your reach, and amplify the impact of your messages, creating an impact.
Frequently Asked Questions about Content Syndication
Q. Does content syndication hurt SEO?
A. Content Syndication does not have to hurt your SEO as long as it is done correctly. Avoid duplicate content issues by correctly using canonical tags. These tags inform search engines such as Google, which version is the original source, helping to preserve its ranking.
Q.What is the difference between content syndication and paid media?
A. While both increase visibility, they take different routes. Content Syndication republishes content on different platforms, and Paid Media often uses advertising to boost visibility.
Q. What are the two types of syndicated content?
A. Two primary forms of content syndication exist. They are organic (manual outreach to different websites and editors) or paid content syndication using networks and platforms that specialize in paid promotion and content syndication.
