As a B2B marketer, you’re always looking for ways to expand your reach and generate leads. Content syndication has become an increasingly popular strategy to achieve these goals, but is it truly worth the effort? This practice, which involves republishing your content on third-party websites, has the potential to expose your brand to larger audiences and boost your lead generation efforts.
In this blog, we’ll explore content syndication and its pros and cons. You’ll learn about the benefits of expanding your content’s reach, the potential impact on your search engine rankings, and how to implement an effective syndication strategy. We’ll also discuss the challenges you might face and provide insights to help you decide if content syndication is the right move for your B2B marketing efforts.
What is Content Syndication?
Definition
Content syndication is a strategic approach to republishing and distributing your digital content across various third-party platforms and websites. This practice involves sharing articles, videos, infographics, and other forms of content beyond your original publishing site to expand your reach and connect with larger audiences. As a B2B marketer, you can use content syndication to raise brand awareness, attract website traffic, and generate leads to increase revenue.
Types of Content Syndication
There are three main categories of content syndication:
- Free syndication: This involves distributing your content across channels at no cost to you as the publisher or creator. You can share your content on various platforms without paying for placement.
- Paid syndication: In this approach, you pay third-party websites and platforms to feature your content, often as sponsored content. This method allows you to target specific audiences and gain exposure on high-traffic sites.
- Owned syndication: This type involves distributing content across channels and platforms you control, such as your websites, social media profiles, and email newsletters.
How It Works
The content syndication process follows a relatively straightforward path:
- Identify the content: Choose high-quality content that offers value to your readers. This could be your most popular blog posts, informative eBooks, or engaging videos.
- Find syndication partners: Look for websites or platforms willing to syndicate your content. These could include industry blogs, news sites, or content syndication networks. It’s crucial to choose sites that align with your brand and target audiences to ensure the success of your syndication efforts.
- Agree on terms: Discuss and agree on the terms of syndication with your chosen partners. This includes how the content will be credited, where the backlinks will point to, and how often the content will be published.
- Publish and monitor: Once the terms are set, your content will be published on the chosen platforms. It’s important to regularly monitor and analyse the performance of your syndicated content to understand its impact and make necessary adjustments.
When syndicating content, it’s crucial to make it clear that the piece is syndicated and not a guest post. Publications typically mark syndicated content with text like: “This article originally appeared in [Original publication + Link]” or “This article appeared in [Original publication + Link] and has been published here with permission”.
To avoid potential SEO issues, it’s essential to include a link back to the original article and, ideally, get the third-party publication to include a canonical link. This practice helps search engines understand that the syndicated content is not duplicate content, which Google doesn’t favour.
Content syndication can have a significant impact on your website’s SEO performance. It can lead to an increase in traffic from new referral channels and a broadened backlink profile, giving search engines further context around your content’s relevancy and popularity.
By leveraging content syndication effectively, you can expand your content’s reach, boost your lead generation efforts, and establish your brand as an industry leader. However, it’s important to approach syndication strategically, choosing the right partners and content types to maximise your results and avoid potential pitfalls.
Pros of Content Syndication
Increased Reach and Visibility
Content syndication has become a powerful tool to amplify your brand’s reach and visibility. By republishing your content on third-party websites, you can tap into larger audiences and connect with potential customers who might not have discovered your brand otherwise. This strategy allows you to expand beyond your immediate network and gain exposure to a broader readership.
When you syndicate your content across multiple websites or publications, you’re essentially casting a wide net, increasing the chances of engagement and brand awareness. For B2B marketers, this approach is particularly effective as it combines the power of content marketing with data-driven strategies to entice and engage target audiences across the web.
Cost-Effective Content Distribution
One of the most significant advantages of content syndication is its cost-effectiveness. As a B2B marketer, you can leverage the content you already have without spending extra resources on creating new assets. This approach allows you to maximise the value of your existing content library and distribute it to a wider audience.
Free content syndication options are available, where your in-house marketing team can share top-performing assets across various platforms like LinkedIn, Medium, or Quora. These channels often have massive audiences, enabling you to increase your content’s reach outside your immediate network without incurring additional costs.
For those with a budget, paid content syndication offers a more strategic approach. Vendors can work with you to understand your target segments and ideal buyer personas, helping you find the most relevant syndication channels for your content. This targeted approach ensures that your content reaches not just a general audience, but also those who align closely with your target customers.
Improved SEO and Backlink Profile
Content syndication can significantly boost your website’s SEO performance and backlink profile. When you syndicate your content to authoritative websites, you often receive backlinks to your original content. These backlinks are valuable for several reasons:
- Referral Traffic: The links acquired can drive direct referral traffic from the syndicated content to your website.
- Link Equity: Search engines view these backlinks as votes of confidence for your website, which can support your organic performance and contribute to increased traffic.
- Search Engine Rankings: When search engines recognise that your site has a high volume of quality backlinks, they tend to rank your pages higher in keyword searches.
By consistently syndicating high-quality content, you can establish your brand as a trusted source of information in your industry. This not only enhances your reputation but also positions your business as an expert in its field, fostering trust and loyalty among your target audiences.
In conclusion, content syndication offers numerous benefits for B2B marketers, from expanding reach and visibility to cost-effective distribution and improved SEO performance. By strategically implementing a content syndication strategy, you can significantly enhance your brand’s online presence and drive valuable marketing results.
Cons of Content Syndication
While content syndication can offer numerous benefits, it’s essential to consider the potential drawbacks before implementing this strategy in your B2B marketing efforts. Here are some of the key challenges you might face:
Potential Duplicate Content Issues
One of the most significant concerns with content syndication is the risk of duplicate content. Search engines, particularly Google, have strict guidelines to protect the authenticity and originality of websites. When you republish your content on multiple platforms, you run the risk of being penalised for content duplication.
This issue can have serious consequences for your SEO efforts. If search engines perceive your syndicated content as duplicate, they might not rank it well in search results. In some cases, your original content might even be outranked by the syndicated version on another site with higher domain authority.
To mitigate this risk, it’s crucial to add appropriate sources and metadata of the parent website in the syndicated content. This practise helps search engines understand that the content is syndicated and not copied or duplicated. Additionally, you can ask syndication partners to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.
Loss of Traffic to Original Site
While content syndication aims to expand your reach, it can potentially lead to a loss of traffic to your original site. When your content appears on third-party websites, readers might consume it there without ever visiting your own site.
This situation can be particularly problematic if the syndication partner has a higher domain rating than your site. In such cases, their version of the content might rank higher in search results, potentially bumping your original content down the rankings. As a result, you might see a decrease in organic traffic to your website.
Moreover, even if you secure a clear backlink from the syndication partner, content syndication is unlikely to become a major source of referral traffic. Many readers who encounter your content on third-party sites won’t click through to your actual website, limiting the direct traffic benefits of syndication.
Diluted Brand Identity
Content syndication can also pose challenges to maintaining a strong and consistent brand identity. When you distribute your content across various platforms, you risk losing control over how it’s presented and perceived.
In some cases, syndication partners might alter or manipulate your content, potentially misrepresenting your business ideals to your target audience. This dilution of your brand message can lead to confusion among potential customers and weaken the impact you aim to make with your content.
Furthermore, when your content is scattered across multiple platforms, it can be difficult for readers to associate it with your brand consistently. In the worst-case scenario, consumers might start associating your content with other, less reputable websites rather than your own brand.
To address this issue, it’s crucial to establish clear agreements with your syndication partners before uploading content. These agreements should restrict partners from making changes to your content without permission. Regular monitoring of your syndicated content is also essential to ensure it continues to align with your brand values and messaging.
In conclusion, while content syndication can be a powerful tool for expanding your reach and generating leads, it’s not without its challenges. By understanding and preparing for these potential drawbacks, you can develop a more effective syndication strategy that maximises benefits while minimising risks to your SEO, traffic, and brand identity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, content syndication can be a valuable strategy for B2B marketers looking to expand their reach and generate more leads. However, it must be approached carefully. To avoid potential pitfalls like SEO issues, brand dilution, and loss of traffic, it’s important to select the right syndication partners who align with your goals and brand identity. With a well-executed plan, content syndication can drive significant benefits, making it a worthwhile investment for those ready to navigate its challenges thoughtfully.
Ready to amplify your reach with the right partner? MyOutreach is your trusted content syndication expert. Let’s connect and explore how we can put your content in front of the right audience.
