Quick Links
Do you want to know how to drive more links and traffic back to your site… without writing new content?
You’d be able to get more value out of every piece of content you write, get more links, and get more eyeballs.
The cool thing is this can be done with content syndication.
Today, I’m breaking down how to u
se content syndication to give your content extra exposure and get quality backlinks.
What Is Content Syndication?
Content syndication is the process of getting your content re-published on other sites across the globe.
This content typically comes from your company’s blog.
When your content gets syndicated and re-published, you’re cited as the original author and this typically results in a link back to your website from a highly credible source(s).
Who Uses Content Syndication As A Strategy?
Content syndication has been used by Fortune 500 companies for quite some time now, but was unavailable to companies without connections in the publishing space.
To give you an example, we’ve written a post on NerdWallet’s $520 Million content strategy that includes a tactical syndication approach.
Essentially they would offer other sites the right to re-publish their content.
Check out this example of another site syndicating NerdWallet’s content:
When you get to the bottom of the page, you’ll find this:
With each use of this content, NerdWallet was gaining backlinks, social shares and exposure at a rapid rate…
Which is exactly what they wanted!
Constant re-publishing of their content helped NerdWallet gain that original authority that the site needed to really pop-off.
Now they’re building relationships with major media sites like Forbes, USAToday, and many others!
Here’s an example link if you want to check this out.
Notice anything there?
Nerdwallet’s content was syndicated by Metro.us. This site is getting nearly 400K organic traffic visits per month:
Nerdwallet is receiving some seriously authoritative links with this strategy…
AND they aren’t the only ones doing this!
This is a pretty popular strategy with big publishers – but not often talked about.
Check this out:
GQ Syndicates on Yahoo:
ValuePenguin Syndicates on NASDAQ:
The Wirecutter Syndicates on Tested.com:
The Points Guy Syndicates on Yahoo Finance:
All of these big brands are re-publishing (syndicating) their existing content on other sites… all while gaining more exposure, and links back to their original content!
Imagine getting backlinks from sites within major news networks like Fox News, NBC or CBS…
Sites like these are receiving huge amounts of traffic each month:
Wouldn’t you like to have your content published here?
But there’s one main issue…
Getting your content re-published by sites like these is not an easy process.
Not only does your content need to be great, but you also need to be an expert at pitching.
Planning Out Your Strategy
Once you’ve decided to use content syndication in your strategy, you’ll need to map out a few things:
- What content am I going to syndicate?
- Which sites do I want my content to go to?
- How am I going to pitch this content?
One great thing about content syndication is that this strategy can be used for both new and existing content.
It’s perfectly normal for older/existing content to be syndicated.
The MOST important aspect is that your content is placed where your target audience will find it.
So you need to make sure that your content grasps their attention and draws them into your site!
Once you’ve decided where you’d like your content to go, you need to assess the following:
- Does this site accept syndicated content?
- What style of content are they publishing?
When you find a site that does syndicate content, you’ll want to read their content and see if there’s a common theme or style of how it’s written.
Seeing this is a great indicator that YOU also have this opportunity and now you need to match your content and perfect your pitch.
When pitching content to these sites, it’s essential to lay out your offer and easily display what’s in it for them. This can be in the form of referral traffic, additional audiences, social shares, etc.
Here’s an example of a sample pitch:
The relationship with sites that syndicate content is similar to that of a Guest Post – which requires manual outreach to secure a backlink.
One thing to remember when pitching your content is that not every site is the perfect fit.
You are going to get declined or rejected… it’s just part of the game.
Even if your pitch is declined, keep the relationship going. You never know when an authority site in your industry will reach out to you for an exchange.
I like to compare pitching content to fishing. You can throw a bait out in the water for hours – nothing bites.
Then all of a sudden, one big fish comes around and BAM – you’re hooked up.
The more time spent out on the water, the more fish you’ll catch.
Don’t be discouraged by the amount of time pitching your content will take because one day it will pay off.
If you’re looking for more info on pitching to blog owners and building these relationships then check out our ultimate guide!
What About Duplicate Content?
One of the most common questions or concerns regarding content syndication is that duplicating your content will hurt your SEO.
Well, that myth has been busted and there are multiple ways around this, the most common being a rel=canonical tag.
A rel=canonical tag is a little snippet of code that’s included in the head tag of the page that’s being syndicated.
This little snippet of code tells Google where the original piece of content comes from so that any link juice and authority gets passed to the original content site rather than the site that’s syndicating it.
Here’s what a rel=canonical tag looks like (in the head section of the page):
With this tag implemented, your content can be syndicated hundreds, even thousands of times without ANY risk for duplicate content.
Summing It Up
As I’ve shown you today, getting your content re-published is an excellent way to gain exposure and get in front of the audience you’ve always wanted.
But getting in front of this audience is not easy…
You have to write great content, build relationships with website/blog owners and become a master at pitching.
You can reach out to a multitude of sites and might walk away with a link or two… or none.
You need a middle-man, someone that already has the authority and relationships established with these sites!
With HOTH Syndication, we guarantee that your content gets syndicated and re-published by over 300+ high authority news outlets across the U.S.
If you want to get more exposure and quality links, try HOTH Syndication today.
Content syndication is a great method for republishing content on other sites in order to reach a broader audience. Syndicated content not only increases your reach and also increase brand awareness.
Thanks for the Amazing Article.
Good stuff David; I’m really excited the way you narrated the topic. I haven’t heard the term content syndication and by your post, I came to know about it. It will definitely work for fortune 500 companies. Expecting more topics from you especially in the area of content marketing. Thanks.
Thank you!
David, I see this content syndication on too many big platforms. This is really a valuable form of link building. Great research David.
Hi David, thanks for the info on syndication and letting us know about your service.
Do you know if every site an article gets syndicated on uses the canonical tag?
We encourage all of our publishers to use the original link as the rel=canonical tag, however, we cannot guarantee that all publishers will. The good thing is that Google is pretty smart. The best way to approach this is to simply publish the piece on your site first so Google sees you as the original source, make sure it gets indexed, then syndicate it.
such a detailed article, The word “content Syndication” is completely new to me, after reading your article I have good knowledge of content syndication. After reading this article I became a fan of “thehoth.com”. Looking forward to your next articles.
Thank you for the article, David.
If an article has internal links pointing to supporting articles, service/product/category pages and/or the homepage, then gets syndicated, what kind of risk would there be with anchor text over-optimizations? Once it’s out there, those few internal link anchor texts would suddenly be heavily weighted in the distribution.
I have been using this method with our blog posts and have been getting large spikes in both traffic and a nice increase in DA. You have to strategically plan these out, but they work wonders for both branding a business and getting some high PR style links.
Hey team,
I think this is a timely article. I saw many syndication in the past but didn’t really bother to try it out.
I’m gonna follow this guide and try out. Who knows!
Thank you for sharing.
Reg
Thanks for the blog post, David. I am a first-time business owner and I had no idea that duplicating blogs was aloud. I appreciate you for making me aware of this strategy.
Great article. Thanks for putting this together. I know content syndication works and I have personally used it to get tons of links and traffic to my blog. But David, the success of the outcome of this strategy depends largely on the quality of the article or content being syndicated.
How can you be sure they use a Canonical tag? The pitch sounds like “here ya go! Ready to publish!”
Hey Troy, if you’re referring to our product HOTH Syndication, we already worked with publishers to get this piece right. If you’re talking about executing this on your own, then you would want to work with them as well.
Great post, the holy grail to high profile backlink the word I have heard but not in the clear sense as I seem to have after reading your post. But I think it will be heard to convince the authoritative sites to give away a backlink. And one thing still not clear to me is the “rel = canonical” tag. Is the tag has to be in the authoritative site or in the syndicated article that I will post
The publisher that is using your content should have a canonical tag pointing back to your website as the original source.
Great read. I do think the duplicate content aspect is a pretty tough hurdle to overcome though. Unless the site you’re pitching to understands SEO and coding, they likely won’t know what a canonical tag is or how to implement it. So convincing them to republish your article and properly setup the canonical, could prove challenging.
But, what’s very interesting is in the first few examples you provided, the sites republishing do not use canonical tags. So is this a matter of major websites being able to get away with bad practices? Or, is providing credit at the end of the article sufficient?
It can be a bit of both – when I see syndicated content across the web, they generally do have links that point to the original source, and also if Google has indexed the content elsewhere previously (for instance your site), Google already knows the original source.
Un Articulo de mucha ayuda, muchas gracias
I am really excited about syndication. This month i’ll buy and let’s see how it works?
Hopeful
Thanks for sharing the detailed info… I am delighted after reading complete post. Definately going to use in content syndication.
excellent article written …I really appreciate your efforts. I will surely use this technique.
Content syndication is a normal part for any press release. It also help in indexing the article at a very fast rate. I always give a plus point to Content Syndication.
Hi Clayton, Is it okay to use content syndication for a fairly new website. The article peaked my interest and something I want to look into. Do you suggest doing content syndication or one of the foundation packages for a young site.
Thank you for sharing the article, David. Content Syndication word is completely new for me, after reading your article I have good knowledge of content syndication. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing the article,. Content Syndication word is completely new for me, after reading your article I have good knowledge of content syndication.
The information you’ve shared in this blog is remarkable. Thanks for sharing such quality information.
Nice post
Thanks for sharing the detailed info… I am delighted after reading complete post. Definately going to use in content syndication.
Hello David Fialkoff,
Very nice and valuable information you have gave here. I see this content syndication on too many big platforms. This is really a valuable form of link building.
Thanks
Gratitude for putting up this prolific article! You truly make everything a cake walk. Genuinely good stuff, saving time and energy.
Thanks for sharing informative post.
Thank you for sharing the article, David. Content Syndication word is completely new for me, after reading your article I have good knowledge of content syndication. Thanks!
I am also SEO Expert and this article is really insightful. Thanks
I am regularly following your blogs it helped in my website SEO. Thanks
I am regularly following your blogs it helped in my website.
Great post i must say and thanks for the information. I appreciate your post and look forward to more.
Great post i must say and thanks for the information. I appreciate your post and look forward to more.
I am regularly following your blogs it helped in my website SEO. Thanks
I never thought of content syndication as a solid SEO strategy. However, now I think it can do wonders if used properly.
Great blog! Enjoy reading it! I also bookmark this site for visiting and updating regularly! thank you for sharing with us!
Great piece of content! Content syndication is important because it helps you reach a larger audience with your content. When you syndicate your content, you make it available to other websites and publications who can then share it with their own audiences. This allows you to reach a larger number of people with your message and to build your brand. Content syndication can also help to increase your search engine ranking, as your content will be associated with high-quality websites.
Detailed and easy to understand! Thank you for this content. Content syndication is a great way to get your content to reach a wider audience. It involves sending your content to other websites, platforms, and services so that more people can have access to your content. This helps drive more traffic to your website and can help you better engage with your customers. With content syndication, you can make sure that your content is being seen my more people, and it can help you reach a broader audience.
Thank you for sharing this article. It’s very Informative.
Great post i must say and thanks for the information. I appreciate your post and look forward to more. I am an SEO Expert In West Bengal.
Thanks & Regards
Surojit Bera
For anyone who is looking to know more about Content syndication and how its helpful I will recommend this article. Nicely written article!
Great post thanks for share
Interesting facts on content syndication.
Content syndication is new topic for us and well described here.
thank you for your efforts.