Content syndication can be a great way to reach more readers and grow your business. When done correctly, it can help you drive more traffic to your website. In this blog post, we will discuss what content syndication is, why you should use it, and how to get started. Let’s get started!
What’s Content Syndication
Content syndication is the process of publishing your content on other websites. This can be done in a number of ways, such as through RSS feeds, republishing articles on other sites, or submitting guest posts to other blogs. Content syndication can be an effective way to reach new audiences and grow your traffic. When done correctly, it can also help you build relationships with other bloggers and influencers in your industry.
Benefits to Content Syndication
In addition to reaching new audiences and growing your traffic, content syndication can also help you build relationships with other bloggers and influencers in your industry. By syndicating your content, you are essentially lending your credibility to the host site. This can help you build trust and relationships with new audiences. Content syndication can also be a great way to get your name and brand out there. When done correctly, it can help increase your visibility and reach.
Another benefit to syndicating content is that it can help you save time. Creating new content can be time-consuming. By syndicating existing content, you can free up time as you’re promoting without actually doing much.
Lastly, content syndication can make you seem legitimate. If you syndicate to an authoritative site, it can help increase your own authority. The readers will think you’re relevant by the principle of association. Think of it as getting a stamp of approval.
Downsides to Content Syndication
There are a few potential downsides to consider before syndicating your content. First, it is important to make sure that you are syndicating high-quality content. If you publish low-quality content on other sites, this could reflect poorly on your brand. Additionally, you will want to be careful not to over-syndicate your content. If you syndicate too much content, it could come across as spammy and turn people off from reading your blog. Finally, you might be risking Google penalties, or Google favoring the other site over yours (more about this matter in the How Google Treats Syndicated Content section.)
Reasons to Agree to Post Syndicated Content
Just like syndicating your content is a low effort activity to promote it, publishing syndicated content is an easy way for other websites to fill their pages. Content syndication also allows website owners to tap into new audiences, which can result in increased traffic and revenue. It’s a win-win situation, especially if the content is high quality.
Repurposing Content
Repurposing content is the process of taking your existing content and reusing it in new and different ways. This can be a great way to get more mileage out of your content and reach new audiences. For example, you could take an old blog post and turn it into an infographic or a video. You could also take an old podcast episode and transcribe it into a blog post. There are endless possibilities for repurposing your content!
Content Syndication and Repurposing Content
Repurposing your content actually counts as a kind of content syndication! When you repurpose your content, you are essentially taking your existing content and publishing it in a new format. This can be a great way to reach new audiences and get more mileage out of your existing content. However, the key difference is the lesser effort. Repurposing content takes time, while content syndication requires very little additional effort.
Guest Posting
We already know that content syndication is when you take your blog content and post it on other websites or blogs. This gives you exposure to a new audience and can help you grow your blog. Guest posting, however, is when you write a guest post for another blog in your niche. This can also help you grow your blog by giving you exposure to a new audience. Content syndication and guest posting are both great ways to grow your blog and reach more readers.
SEO and Content Syndication
Content syndication is a great way to reach a larger audience and improve your SEO efforts. When done correctly, syndicating your content can help you earn backlinks from high-quality websites. This will not only improve your search engine rankings, but also increase traffic to your website.
However, it’s important to note that there is a fine line between content syndication and duplicate content. If you cross this line, you may receive a Google penalty for duplicating content. To avoid this, make sure that any content you syndicate is original and adds value to the site it’s being published on. You should also include a link back to your website, so readers can learn more about your business.
How Google Treats Syndicated Content
Google’s official stance is that they don’t penalize sites for syndicating content. However, some SEO specialists believe that there may be a penalty for duplicate content. It’s hard to say for sure because Google’s algorithms are constantly changing and evolving. If you’re thinking about syndicating your content, the best thing to do is to test it out on a small scale first. See how it affects your traffic and rankings before making any decisions.
Will Google Favor the Original Posting Site?
There’s no clear answer on this. It depends on a lot of factors, such as the relationship between the sites, the quality of the content, and how well it’s syndicated. If you’re syndicating to a big site and yours is smaller, there’s a chance that Google will give more weight to the larger site. But again, it depends on a lot of factors, and even if that happens, while it’s not optimal, there are still benefits to gain. In general, it’s best to err on the side of caution and make sure that any site you syndicate your content to is high-quality and relevant to your audience.
How to Syndicate Your Content
Now that you know the basics of content syndication, let’s take a look at how you can start syndicating your own content. Follow the steps below to start syndicating your content today:
- Choose the right platform: There are many websites where you can syndicate your content. To get started, choose one or two platforms that are relevant to your industry and have a large audience.
- Create original content: As we mentioned before, it’s important to make sure that any content you syndicate is original. This means creating new blog posts or articles specifically for the platform you’re syndicating on.
- Include a link back to your website: When you syndicate your content, be sure to include a link back to your website. This will help readers learn more about your business and drive traffic to your site.
- Monitor your results: Once you start syndicating your content, keep an eye on your traffic and engagement levels. If you see a significant increase in either of these metrics, then you know that content syndication is working for you!
Aside from these, it’s also good to monitor what kind of content usually gets syndicated. Of course, there are no hard rules, and a site may refuse to syndicate your content, even though they agreed to publish a similar one earlier. Having said that, keeping open tabs on content your desired sites have syndicated will increase your chances of striking a deal.
How to Avoid Plagiarism
The best way to signalize to search engines that your syndicated content is not plagiarized is to include a canonical tag. A canonical tag is an HTML element that tells search engines which version of a piece of content is the original.
For example, let’s say you have a blog post that you syndicate on multiple sites. You would want to include a canonical tag on each version of the blog post, pointing back to the original article on your site. This tells search engines that although the content may be duplicated elsewhere, the version on your site is the original.
Including a canonical tag is the best way to ensure that your syndicated content does not get penalized by search engines for being duplicate content. If you’re not sure how to add a canonical tag to your syndicated content, check with the site where you’re syndicating it or your web developer. They should be able to help you implement this important element.
Paid vs Self Syndication
If you’re looking to syndicate your content and reach a larger audience, there are two main ways to go about it: paid and self-syndication. Paid syndication involves working with a third-party organization that will help distribute your content to various outlets. Self-syndication, on the other hand, is the process of manually submitting your content to different websites or blogs.
There are pros and cons to both paid and self-syndication. Paid syndication is generally more expensive, but it can reach a wider audience more quickly. Self-syndication takes more time and effort, but it’s usually free (or very low cost). There are a number of different places you can syndicate your content, both paid and free. Here are some of the most popular options:
- social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn;
- content aggregators like Medium and Tumblr;
- paid websites and platforms like Outbrain or Taboola.
As you can see, there are a number of different ways to reach more readers with your content. If you’re looking to grow your business, content syndication is definitely something you should consider. Just be sure to do your research and choose the right option for you. Paid or self-syndication? It’s up to you!