Why syndicated content matters

Digital Marketing | Lead Generation

If you have dabbled in the world of digital marketing for even a short time, you will know what a blog is and its role in generating traffic to your website. 

But not many people realise that after you have written your blog, posted it to your socials and felt the benefit of that all-important click-through, you can use that same content to grow your business further. 

Welcome, my friend, to the world of syndicated content. 

We think that there are three main benefits of planned syndication of content. And this article will help you understand how it can help you grow your business. Because let’s face it, why do it unless it’s going to bring in more business?! 

What is syndicated content?

Syndication is the process by which an author shares existing content that they have written on other websites. It’s a great way for businesses to reach new audiences. You tend to reach out to other websites (or to throw in a big of jargon that makes me look clever: “syndication partners”) and pitch a piece of content you have that might suit their site’s audience too.

What’s in it for you?

1. It grows awareness of your brand

Syndication is one way to make sure your content reaches as many people as possible. If you syndicate your content, you can share it across multiple platforms, such as social media sites, blogs, and even email newsletters. This means more eyes will see your content and there are more opportunities for potential customers to find out about your brand. 

All of this can create new leads, particularly if your content is syndicated on websites that your target audience reads. It can lead to new audiences discovering your brand and can significantly increase your brand reach. 

2. It can help your SEO

A great benefit of syndicated content is that it’s fantastic way of mining the all-important backlink, the gem that all good SEO-lovers seek. 

“What is a backlink and why should I care about it”, I hear you say? 

A backlink is when one website hyperlinks to your site. They might have mentioned you in their blog, posted an image related to your company or recommended you. It doesn’t really matter where the hyperlink comes from, but so long as by clicking on the link, they end up on your site, the hyperlink counts. 

Syndicated content is a way to get a backlink from a site. When a third party publishes your content, they have to attribute it to you. Insisting on a backlink as a form of attribution means that your site appears more authoritative in the eyes of search engines. This borrowed authority is why backlinks matter. 

When a user searches for a product or service connected with your industry, a whole list of results is generated by Google. The order that which the websites are ranked on this results page depends on lots of factors, but the one we care about at the moment is the authority that Google perceives your website to have. Google tends to think that if a website has plenty of other websites linking to it, then that website must have worth and therefore must be an authority in its niche. As a result, it ranks websites with backlinks higher than others.

If you are in a particularly competitive industry, authoritative backlinks are a great way to improve your search engine ranking position. 

3. It’s time effective

As any good content marketer will tell you, it takes a long time to create great content. Syndicating content means that you get to benefit from your content more than once. So, it is a very cost-effective way of marketing your brand. 

What are some of the downsides?

All that sounds great, doesn’t it? But there’s always a downside, isn’t there?! Here are some of the difficulties with it:

1. Google doesn’t like it

The biggest con of syndicated content is that Google isn’t exactly enamoured with duplicate content on the web. They don’t penalise websites that do it (at least, so long as it’s not prolific), but they tend to be a bit miffed. 

Now why does this matter?

As much as we hate it, Google are pretty much the gatekeepers to the internet. As of December 2021, Google had a whopping 85.55% share of all search traffic. Nearly 9 in every 10 search engines searches happened on its platform. So if you annoy Google, your website can really take a hit.

So, if you choose to syndicate content, only do it on websites that have good authority themselves, and be selective and targeting.

2. The partner website can rank better

Sometimes, the content can rank higher on your syndication partner’s website than your own. Although you still benefit from the authority borrowed by the backlink, the content on your site won’t generate the traffic that you’d hope for. 

So, if you’re planning on syndicating for reasons other than domain authority, don’t do so on a website that has a higher domain authority than your own.

3. It’s hard work to find syndication partners

If there are so many benefits to syndicating content, why isn’t everyone happily syndicating away? Well, the answer is that getting other people to publish your content is really really difficult. 

You might be incredibly interested in what you write about, but not everyone will feel that way. There has to be a good reason for another website to publish it; some benefit that they are getting. 

Because it’s so tricky to find content that works in that way, getting syndicated can take a long time. There can be lots of ignored requests. 

How to find syndication partners

But don’t let the thought of all those rejections deter you from even trying. There are several things that you can do to find those all-important syndication partners. We thought we’d help by giving you our top four avenues. (after all, you’ve read this far down, so you deserve a little reward).

1. You can start by looking at the websites of other companies in your industry. Many companies use syndicators to help them reach new audiences. If you search “[desired website]: reproduced with permission” or words to that affect, you can see whether they have syndicated content before. If they have done it before, then they’ll probably do it again. 

2. You can also search for “[industry/topic] + write for us”. Some websites actually ask for guest blogs and they should pop up with this search. Make sure they’re not expecting original content though! That’s called “guest blogging” and it a whole different beast (I’m sure we’ll blog about that eventually too).

3. Another source is your current professional partnerships. If you work with another company on certain jobs or use their products and services, you can create content that might be useful for them to have on their website. 

4. There are some websites that allow you to post content free of charge. Medium is a good example of this. Although, you have to be careful, as sometimes their version of your content can end up ranking higher! So use wisely. 

Remember…

Once you have spent the time creating great content, syndication provides you with an opportunity to reuse it to grow your business further. Used creatively and wisely, it can build backlinks, improve your website’s visibility online and introduce your brand to a much wider client base.