Content Syndication and SEO Value

SEO and Content Syndication

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Content syndication…. hmm, you heard the young interns in your office talking about this the other day but really had no idea so you walked away. Well, don’t despair, we’re here to help you understand content syndication and how it can help you improve your search engine optimization (SEO) – and of course help you fit in with the cool kids in the office.

Content Syndication: What is it?

Because you have learned how to develop high quality content, you are now at a point where you can share this content on other websites. This sharing of your content is referred to as content syndication. Your article, white paper snippet or blog post is used verbatim on another website. This is all there is to it. But to be useful and to help your SEO goals, you need to get down to the nitty-gritty of content syndication.

Content Syndication: Should you do it?

Like all aspects of website design and strategies, you should only do something if it makes sense and aligns with your goals. You know the old saying about “just because everyone else jumped off the bridge didn’t make it a good idea” – well the same applies to content syndication.

Content syndication makes sense when you’ve got good quality content that is working and generating the results you want. Now that it’s working from your website, it’s time to think about reaching out to other people and audiences. These are the people who might not visit your website regularly or those people in that hard-to-reach demographic. Syndicating your content on the websites that these people visit, can give you the awareness and audience-reach you’re looking for.

But remember that content syndication shouldn’t be done lightly. Really make sure you know the demographic for the website you’re thinking of syndicating with. Browse the entire site, and take a hard look at the content on the website – is it top quality, would you want it on your website, click the backlinks and see where they take you.

Above all else, you only want to syndicate with websites that are of a higher authority than yours. You want this content syndication to help increase your value and validity and this can only be done by syndicating with websites that can do this for you. Be picky about who you syndicate with (and this also means you should be picky about content you agree to host on your website).

Content Syndication: How do you do it?

Before you can start syndicating your content you need to determine what content to syndicate and how much of it to syndicate.

  • What to syndicate? Make sure you are using content that is of interest and relevant to the website readers. You don’t want to syndicate content about something that is of no interest to the syndicating website’s readers. This will only result in your content being ignored and will not help you establish a voice of authority. Think about what content is missing from the website or how some of your content can help answer questions that the website’s visitors may have.
  • How much to syndicate? You don’t want all of your content available on other websites, this can result in devaluing your content and impact your SEO. Look at some of your top quality content, syndicate some of this and make sure you have good quality content on your site that these new visitors will be interested in. You don’t want these new visitors coming to your site and being disappointed with the rest of your content. Be judicious and try to think like the website visitor.

The key to ensuring content syndication does not harm your SEO and search engine results is to follow a use a few simple tips:

  • Search engines need to know that your content is a copy. To do this, make sure the page that is hosting your content is using the rel=canonical tag and to have this tag link to your website. (We can help you with this. It sounds complicated, but really it’s not.)
  • You don’t want this syndicated copy to be indexed. That’s right, you don’t want the content that is syndicated on the other website to be indexed by search engines. To do this, the website needs to tell the search robots not to index the site using <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex, follow” />. (Yes, we can help with this and work with the syndicating website to get this sorted.)
  • Make sure you have obvious and direct attribution. It needs to be clear that this syndicated content came from you. Make sure there is a direct link from the syndicated content to the exact same content on your website. This helps the website visitor understand where this content is coming from and generates those all-important links that Google wants to see.

What About the SEO?

Now that you know about content syndication, you’re likely still wondering about the SEO. Well, when done correctly, content syndication will help and improve your SEO. Along with the links back to your website there are the social media impacts when the website and the website visitors share, link, Tweet and like your content. This all translates into good news for your SEO and ultimately your website overall.

We can help you with you content syndication. Maybe you’re looking for appropriate websites, need to improve your content quality, have questions about the process, or just want some feedback on how and what to syndicate – our team is here for you. (We’ll make sure you can fit in with the young interns and other cool kids in the office.)

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