Content Syndication: How to Scale Your Backlinks with Syndicated Content
Content syndication is one of the best methods for scaling your backlinks in for SEO & content marketing. Writing and publishing the original article (or infographic, or video, or any piece of material, really) is only the first step. Even if you create something informative, entertaining, valuable, and shareable, it won’t mean much unless there are actual people around to read and consume it. Syndication attempts to solve that problem by making your created content available to a wider audience. In this guide, we discuss what free content syndication is, why it matters to SEO companies, and how you can execute in order to rank your content for years into the future. If you’re ready to dive in, we’ll get started! What is Content Syndication? Content syndication is a term used to describe the re-publishing of content by third-party websites. Any type of digital content can be syndicated. This includes traditional blog posts and news articles, videos, images, infographics, and press releases. The type of content being syndicated in today’s online world might look a little different than it did 25 years ago, but syndication has been around for as long as there’s been mass media. Prior to the World Wide Web, newspapers and magazines often syndicate your content from freelance writers, local publications, and smaller papers with fractional readership. The purpose of content syndication, both then and now, is to provide a mutually beneficial outcome for both parties: The individual/company who offers up the valuable content for syndication gains access to a much wider target audience. The publication that publishes the syndicated content gets access to free and/or on-demand content without having to invest internal resources. Benefits and Perks of Content Syndication In this guide, we’re focusing primarily on content syndication from the perspective of the business providing the content to the syndicated partner. In other words, we want to explore how syndicating your content can impact your website and brand. With this in mind, here are some of the top benefits (other than higher visibility): 1. Referral Traffic The first benefit is direct referral traffic. Whenever you have a post syndicated, there’s usually some sort of referral link back to your site. And they’re generally pretty prominent. At the top and/or bottom of the post, you’ll typically see something like: “This post originally appeared on…” or This content was first published on…” with a hyperlink back to your website. A percentage of people will click the link and become a visitor on your site. 2. SEO As you may know, backlinks play a prominent role in search engine optimization and are one of the top few ranking factors for Google and other search engines. Getting a link from a syndicated content partner provides an authoritative backlink and visible inroad into your site. Check your backlinks now with our free tool! 3. Subscribers Depending on how your own content is syndicated and the type of call-to-action or link that you use back to your site, you may be able to pick up email subscribers and leads. Entrepreneur Sara Peterson recently published one of her articles on EliteDaily. At the end of the post, she got permission from the editors to include a bio that read: Sarah Peterson is the author of Unsettle.org, where she encourages people to never settle for careers they don’t love. Sign up for her free course to find the perfect idea for a lifestyle business so you can gain flexibility and freedom and do work you live. This simple link to download a lead magnet allowed Sarah to accumulate 1,000 new subscribers within a matter of days. She’s since gone on to show people how you can repeat the process. 4. Branding From a branding perspective, getting more visibility and exposure for your company is a great thing. Every time you syndicate a post, you can/should include your logo and brand name as a way of building trust with readers. (Even if they never click the original link or visit your own website, there’s still some exposure there that could spark trust in a future exchange.) 5. Resource Maximization Finally, content syndication is a sustainable method of content creation. It helps you maximize the more resources that you have on hand and prevents the need to constantly publish new content over and over again. Repurposing vs. Guest Blogging vs. Syndication There are a lot of different phrases and terms people use when discussing content. Let’s explore three of the top terms and explain how they’re similar yet different. Repurposing. When you take an existing piece of content and then change it up to fit a different medium or format, you’re repurposing the content. A classic example of content repurposing is when you take a podcast episode and turn it into a own blog post (or vice versa). Guest Blogging. When you publish a guest blog posts, you’re actually writing a brand new post that’s never been published anywhere else and then publishing a guest post on a third-party website with your own bio and a backlink to your domain. Content Syndication. Finally, there’s content syndication (which is what this article is about). This is when you take an existing piece of content and syndicate to another platform. Syndicated content is typically done on a word-for-word basis, though there may be some changes to the title, formatting, and/or basic structure in order to fit the publisher’s unique editorial requirements. As you can see, these three concepts are pretty closely related. However, the execution and application is slightly different. Understanding this will allow you to make smart and intentional decisions about your content strategy. The 3 Tiers of Content Syndication There are plenty of different ways to think about content syndication. But one way is to look at it in a series of three “tiers,” which dictate both an order and a degree of importance for the overall campaign success. Within each tier, there are a number of different options for individual brands to choose. But