8 Tips to Build Your Authority with Content Syndication

Content syndication has become one of the most rewarding strategies to build your authority and effectively reach prospective readers or potential customers.

The concept of content syndication describes the process of pushing your blog content out into third-party websites in the form of a full article, snippet, link thumbnail, video, slideshow, or infographic.

When used correctly, content syndication can contribute to building a larger fan base, improving your SEO strategy, increasing your popularity, and also encouraging sharing of your content via social media platforms.

Here are 8 tips to build your authority with content syndication:

1. Look Carefully for the Most Suitable Syndication Partner
Although syndication may be associated with duplicate content, this content marketing effort is actually about forming solid partnerships with authoritative websites, usually from the same niche. Once your content is pushed out to their audience, and a link is provided back to your website, you subsequently gain more credibility, and you get the opportunity to be put inside a network of advertising websites for shared revenue. A couple of such websites include SheKnows, BlogHer, WomensForum, and StyleList.

2. Understand Your Audience
When it comes to content syndication, one of the most important factors to take note at is your audience. If you have a sports blog, you do not want to partner with a food network, or vice versa. By choosing a popular, authoritative and well-run network in the same niche as yours, your content marketing efforts will be rewarded in terms of traffic and revenue.

3. Syndication Legitimizes Your Content
Every niche has syndication partners that accept applications for participating in their network. OutBrain.com is one of the most popular, as the website is focused on identifying the content that might interest their audience. The point is using your content to attract the masses, providing you with the great opportunity to get other content from third-party websites recommended to your audience as well, hence creating interest. In the end, both parties will be suggesting each others’ content on your websites, effectively gaining more exposure and traffic.

4, Effective Syndication Brings Ad Revenue Shares
When you first look at the websites promoting content syndication, you will likely notice that, in fact, they are advertising networks. Apart from getting your content recommended to a larger audience, and also encouraging them to take a better look at your website, you will also share in ad revenue sold by the network, everything through the thousands of smaller websites that are banded together. As such, even the smaller publisher will earn revenue, which will consequently make advertising sales a lot more lucrative and productive than ever before.

5. First and Foremost, Your Traffic
Despite the interest and engagement of the content on your website, you cannot expect to efficiently syndicate it if you do not currently drive much traffic. Syndication networks will likely accept partnering only with those websites that are capable of generating traffic, so working hard to build a strong online presence is critical to your success. Once you drive more traffic to your website, your chances of getting accepted by these networks increases exponentially. Think of traffic as of the currency of the syndication game – the more you can generate, the likelier to win you will be.

6. Set Effective Syndication Objectives
Simply syndicating your content is not going to help you reach your audience or get your efforts rewarded in terms of exposure and revenue. If you want to drive more traffic to your website, and also provide education, setting relevant syndication goals is of utmost importance. Once you know your objectives, the next step is choosing that network that will help your popularity thrive, and build your authority.

7. Create Compelling Content
There are several requirements your content must meet in order to be fully accepted by syndication networks. Your articles or blog posts should address your audience, look professional, have no spelling or grammar errors, and convey honesty. Whether the reader chooses to buy from you or not once he reaches the end of your material, the content you publish must be professional, with a compelling structure that makes it easier to read.

8. Know What Type of Syndication Is Best for You
Content syndication can be either free or paid, depending on the audience you are targeting and the quality of the links. SlideShare.Net is the best example of free syndication website; all the others mentioned above are advertisement-supported networks. Finally, there are also licensed syndication networks – and OutBrain is an excellent example.

Before you proceed to submitting an application to participate in any of these syndication networks, you should review the criteria mentioned above and then set your goals. Don’t join any network before you have read the fine print – this will enable you to avoid breaking rules or other infringements, so you can always make the most of your content syndication efforts, and build your authority quickly.