What is Content Syndication?

Content syndication is the process of republishing part of an article or blog post on another, more popular site. You might elect to republish the entire piece, only the title, or just a small opening portion. The goal with syndication is to attract readers by encouraging them to click from the blog post to your site to consume the content. Syndication provides you with the opportunity to expand your reach and demonstrate your authority and expertise to more people.

Content Syndication BrightEdgeHow can I utilize content syndication?

There are a number of ways to use content syndication. You can repost an entire article, a paragraph or even just a headline. This second posting is done on a more popular website with the goal of increasing the number of people who see your content. Your headline, paragraph or article would then attract the attention of these readers, drawing them back to your website to read the rest of the article or see what else you have written.

Increasing authority with content syndication

Since your article was published on a site that receives more traffic than your own, you can also increase domain authority. The readers who regularly view the hosting site have already established trust with this site. By posting your content and encouraging people to visit your original site, the host site helps to build your credibility, which can then help increase your lead generation.

Will content syndication hurt my rankings?

Your site and brand reputation is a common concern for many when it comes to content syndication, but when done properly, the process will only help your rankings.

To successfully syndicate content, you want to let Google know that this content has been duplicated on purpose and that it is not an attempt to trick the search engines. You can do this by using a rel=”canonical” tag, which is Google’s preferred means of signifying syndicated content. Other potential options would also be NoIndex tags or including an attribution link. All three of these options let Google know that you are not trying to get two pages indexed and ranked, and that there is one page in particular that should be ‘counted’ for the search engine. Google’s main concern is to avoid having multiple copies of the same content appear in search results, as this can hurt the user experience. With the right tags, you can avoid being penalized.

Why should I syndicate content?

Syndicated content can help you grow your audience and attract the attention of new readers. Since your material will be posted on websites that have a larger and potential different audience than your own, you have an excellent opportunity to grow your reach and reputation. Ideally, the content you syndicate should be high-quality so that you attract positive attention and create a strong reputation for yourself. At the same time, do not syndicate all of your best content, because you want to have at least some material on your website for new users who arrive.

How to do content syndication?

  1. Select a website that has the audience and traffic rates that you want to attract to your website. It should target the same ideal audience as your own site while also having more authority than your personal web property.
  2. Choose some of your highest quality content to syndicate. It should be on par with the quality that is typically seen on the host site. At the same time, do not repost all of your best work. You want some material to be fresh on your website for when new visitors arrive.
  3. Decide how much you want to syndicate. This will depend on your goals for the syndication process. If you want to grow traffic, you might only repost a headline or paragraph. If you want to build brand awareness, you might repost the entire article.
  4. Avoid duplicate content penalties. There are a number of options for avoiding Google penalties.
    1. A canonical tag is often the preferred means of avoiding problems with content syndication. This tells Google that this version of the article is just a copy and lets the search engine know where the original is.
    2. You can also put a NoIndex on the copy, so that Google does not ‘read’ the reposted version.
    3. You can also use an attribution link, as some host sites do not want a NoFollow or canonical tag. The attribution link should generally be enough to let the search engines know that this version of the article is a copy.
  5. Track your traffic rates from your syndicated content to get an idea of how successful your efforts were. Another helpful metric might be Share of Voice to determine its impact on brand awareness.

Content syndication can be a valuable tool in the marketer’s toolbox when working to attract attention to content and improve the brand’s reach and reputation. If you decide to use this method, always follow the steps precisely to avoid incurring penalties.

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