Your Guide to Understanding Content Syndication

When it comes to your content, you’ve done all the right things. You’ve written your blog, published it on your website, promoted it across all your social media channels, and have even optimized it to make the search engines happy. So, why is your content still not getting the attention you think it deserves? 

The good news is that you are not alone — many marketers struggle with getting traffic to their content. Although there are many different ways to do this, content syndication is a common solution. Content syndication is a cost-effective way to increase brand awareness and improve SEO performance.

Keep reading to learn more about what syndication can do for your content. 

What is content syndication?

Before we teach you how to syndicate your content, we’ll start with the basics. At its core, content syndication is defined as republishing the same piece of content across multiple websites — with permission, of course.

Publications like content syndication because it gives their audience fresh, new content with minimal work on their part. Meanwhile, the original creator benefits by getting their content in front of a new and potentially larger audience that they might not have been able to reach otherwise. It’s a win-win.

Chances are, you’ve been reading a piece of content online and have seen something like this:

“This article originally appeared in [Publication + Link].”

OR

“This article was originally published on [Publication + Link] and has been republished here with permission.”

This is syndicated content. 

Why is content syndication important?

If you’re already creating great content, then the next step is to focus your efforts on expanding your reach — and content syndication can help. In case you’re still not convinced on the importance of content syndication and what it can do for your brand, here are three of our top reasons to syndicate your content. 

It’s cost effective

Although content syndication can either be free or paid, many websites and publications are more than willing to publish your content for free if you give them a good enough pitch. You can do this by finding the name and email address of the website’s editor, and reaching out to see if they’d be open to syndicating your content. Another way to syndicate content for free is to self-syndicate — this can be done by republishing your content on other platforms yourself, such as Medium or LinkedIn. 

It boosts brand awareness

Syndicating your content to websites with large, loyal audiences should seem like a no-brainer. After all, why wouldn’t you want your content to be seen by more people? If you’re already creating valuable content, then repurposing it is an easy way to expose your brand to new target audiences. In addition to boosting your brand awareness, you’ll also be able to increase referral traffic and improve your lead generation. If someone sees your content and enjoys it, the ultimate goal is for them to click through to your website for more. 

It improves SEO performance 

Increasing website traffic is a common goal for marketers when it comes to content syndication. Although Google doesn’t like duplicate content, this is not the same thing as content syndication. In fact, Google rates syndicated content with authority and sees it as a quality source. As a result, syndication can help increase your organic and referral traffic. Google is all about authority — and when the SEO fairies see links coming from authoritative sites, they assume that you also have quality content. This can help boost your domain authority, which will help you rank higher in organic search as a result.

How to Syndicate Your Content

Now that you know what content syndication is and why it’s so important, here are some simple ways to get started.

Syndicate to a bigger website

If you’re wanting to reach a wider audience, then it makes sense to syndicate to a website with more readers or greater authority than yours. As a marketer, you want your content to get seen, so syndicating your content to a bigger website is a simple way to amplify reach. Like we discussed earlier, if a credible site links to yours, then that site’s positive reputation will help boost your own site’s authority — thus increasing your search rankings as a result. At the end of the day, sharing is caring and there’s nothing wrong with a little borrowed authority, right?

Syndicate to a similar website

When it comes to content syndication, it is not enough to only submit quality content — the content also needs to be relevant to that website’s brand and audience. Take time to find content that will truly resonate with the readers of the site you are considering pitching to. Doing this will not only increase your likelihood of getting picked up by the website, but will also improve your chance of generating leads.

Get picked up by other publications

Believe it or not, there are ways to syndicate content that require absolutely no effort on your part. Websites exist that naturally syndicate content — and if you’re lucky enough, your content just might get republished. These sites will typically post an excerpt from the content and link back to the original source. 

Guest post, then syndicate later

Whereas the other forms of content syndication that we mentioned involve taking content that you already wrote and repurposing them, guest blogging is another way to syndicate your content. Like the name suggests, a guest blog is when an author creates unique content that is made specifically to be posted on another brand’s website. This is a great strategy if you are looking to drive traffic and build trust or authority for your brand. Once the content is published, you can syndicate it later to other sites.

Content Syndication is Here to Stay

Although the world of digital marketing is constantly evolving, it’s safe to say that content syndication is not only rising in importance, but it’s also here to stay for a while.

If you are already utilizing inbound marketing and creating valuable content on a consistent basis, then a natural next step is to start syndicating your content. The bottom line is that content syndication can help increase your brand awareness and credibility, improve your SEO performance, and generate leads.

So, what are you waiting for? If you’re ready to start taking advantage of content syndication, then our inbound marketing team is ready to help! Contact us today to get started, or download our Top Offer Bundle to get a head start.