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Let’s say you just started a new website. You put effort into creating great content. You hit the publish button. You wait, you wait, and you keep waiting. But nothing happens. You don’t get as many visitors as you expected.
Well, the bitter truth of the internet world is: Just because you create great content doesn’t mean you’ll attract visitors.
We know that’s what Google says, but it doesn’t hold true in real cases.
You need to employ several tactics to get your content seen.
Getting traffic is the most common problem with most B2B marketers. Although there are several ways to attract new visitors, content syndication has stood the test of time and proves to be more effective than others.
B2B marketing faces one of the toughest competition when it comes to attracting new visitors. But content syndication can help you rank your blog post, gain new visitors, attain your campaign goals and even help SEO.
At this point, you might be wondering – What is B2B Content Syndication?
In this blog post, we’ll show you what is content syndication, the best
practices and the process you should follow to make it work.
So let’s first define B2B content syndication.
What is B2B Content Syndication?
Content Syndication is the process of republishing your content on a third-party website. It can be a video, blog post, or infographic. Third-party websites like to syndicate because it gives them fresh content without putting in any effort.
B2B marketers use this tactic to gain new visitors for their brand.
Content Syndication is not new to the content industry. Even in the printing days, newspapers with large-scale circulation syndicated content from freelancers and smaller publications. The small players got the attention they deserve, and larger-scale publications got content.
Though it is possible to get confused between content syndication and guest posting – there’s a stark difference between the two.
With guest posting, you specifically write content for the other website, and you cannot recycle the content elsewhere.
With syndicated content, B2B marketers literally take the same content and republish it on third-party websites with permission.
From the reader’s perspective, a user is notified that content is syndicated. The content is accredited to its source. This not only gives credit but also solves duplication issues.
Content Syndication and SEO
Google hates being manipulated. And it doesn’t like duplicate content.
Although it doesn’t directly penalize you for duplicate content, it certainly holds your website from ranking higher in search engines.
Syndicated content has a good chance of being viewed as duplicate content. You can avoid it by making it obvious to the search engines that the respective content is syndicated by linking it back to the source.
The Possible Drawbacks of B2B Content Syndication
While content syndication can help B2B marketers with a wider reach for their content, there are 3 possible downsides to this tactic.
1) Duplicate Content Issue: This is the biggest fear of B2B marketers when it comes to content syndication. Since you are publishing the same content on a third-party website.
2) Outranking your own website: Suppose the syndicated content is published on a website with higher authority. Now Google can view the third-party website as the legitimate source and rank their website higher.
3) Can’t Collect Leads: This is probably the biggest downside of content syndication. Your content may attract a lot of visitors to the third-party website but you won’t be able to collect emails since they won’t allow you to place an email widget on their website.
Effective Strategies for Free Content Syndication
1) Syndicate Content to a Bigger Website: When you publish your content on a bigger website, you amplify your content and brand to a larger audience. However, since readers trust the bigger website, the chances of them visiting the original source are low. So only a small percentage of visitors come to your website. But if your primary goal is brand awareness, a bigger publication is the way to go.
2) Syndicate content on the website with same niche: If your focus is to attract readers from the same niche, you can post the content on smaller or more focussed websites. Ideally, look for websites with a similar target audience as yours. Contextual backlinks also allow you to rank higher in google. It is a great way to attract new readers to your website that has a potential to convert.
3) Post on Linkedin and Medium: Sometimes your business must let your thought leadership get in front of a large audience. So after you publish the content on a bigger website, you can republish the content on Linkedin and Medium (With permission). Basically, you are trying to get a wider reach for your content by using high authority websites.
4) Get Picked up By Websites for Syndication: To make your blog more visible, you can create a page on your website that you are open to content syndication. Make sure you optimize it for the right keywords.
Paid Content Syndication
Paid content syndication is when you pay to promote your content. Paid content syndication increases your reach quickly and, if done correctly, can boost your ROI and turn the content into lead generation assets.
Why Should B2B Marketers Use Paid Syndication Strategy?
There are a few reasons a B2B marketer should look for a paid content syndication strategy. The first being that you recognize the power of content marketing. Content can be an excellent tool to invite traffic to your website and convert them into leads.
Another key reason is that you cannot always rely on paid ads (Google, LinkedIn, Facebook) to generate revenue. If you aren’t seeing any great ROAS, you could use paid syndication to compensate for that loss.
Benefits of Paid Syndication over Free Syndication
While free B2B content syndication has its own benefits, it doesn’t carry the same degree of effects as a paid strategy
1) Save In-House Resources
With free syndication, you need to have a dedicated team to distribute resources on different platforms. If you are committed to promoting every blog post, video, white paper, then you’ll have less time to create content. With paid syndication, you do not worry about distribution. The platform will promote your content to the right audience.
2) Supports your Sales Funnel Strategy.
With paid syndication, you can plan the type of visitors you’d like to attract. If you want a broad general audience, you can create content with a topic that everyone is familiar within the industry. This supports your Top-of-the-funnel strategy. If you wish to attract a narrow audience, you could create specific content supporting the bottom of the funnel. Paid syndication gives you this freedom.
3) Improve your ABM Campaigns
Account-based marketing is a popular strategy used by B2B marketers to reach the key decision-makers at a company. ABM and content syndication go hand-in-hand. You can create personalized content and promote it on websites targeting specific individuals. When you bring syndication into your ABM strategy, you give yourself a chance to gain qualified leads. This can also become a foundation of your B2B intent data strategy and target leads when they are actively looking for a way to solve their problem.
Best Paid and Free B2B Content Syndication Platforms
1) Quora – Free
Quora is a social media platform that allows users to ask questions. Quora also provides a blogging platform for people who don’t want to start a website from scratch.
B2B marketers can utilize this platform to share their relevant content and engage with like-minded individuals.
2) Medium – Free
If you have blog content and want to make it reach a wider audience, Medium can be your choice. Just copy-paste your URL into the medium tool. The blogging platform will automatically format the content with relevant meta tags to let the search engine know your website is the original source.
3) Slideshare – Free
Purchased by LinkedIn in 2012, Slide share is one of the most visited platforms in the world. You can share videos, presentations, documents relevant to your industry. The platform makes it easy for your target audience to find the content.
4) Reddit – Free
Reddit is not exactly a content syndication tool since you cannot write rich articles. Instead, you can share your web URL and start a conversation around the topic and drive traffic to your website. This can be a great place to share your opinions, create a fan following, and portray your business as a thought leader.
5) Facebook – Free and Paid
B2B content marketers can leverage Facebook groups to post relevant articles to support the ongoing conversations. Most FB groups are created around a certain topic and hence it will be easier to find your target audience.
With paid ads, Facebook allows you to target specific individuals. It can also help you target a lookalike audience based on your current readers.
6) Pinterest – Free
If you create visuals or infographics, Pinterest is the best content syndication tool. The free version allows you to upload as many piece of content as you want. The paid version allows for more user interaction.
7) Outbrain – Paid
Probably the biggest content syndication tool, Outbrain recommends over 250 million recommendations every month. It offers an extensive ad network for various types of content. The content can take the form of blogs, videos, podcasts, and social media posts.
8) Zemanta – Paid
Zemanta Uses Programmatic ad technology to determine which placements and creatives can lead to the right users engaging with your content. This solution can help you optimize click-through rate and improve ROI. Zemanta helps B2B marketers to develop content for a specific target audience.
9) Taboola – Paid
Taboola too provides a network of publishers that distributes content based on algorithms. You have control over which sites your content can appear on. The content is so strategically placed that it doesn’t appear as sponsored to the new readers.
Conclusion
When you’re just starting out, getting maximum reach should be your first priority.
Whether you want to build an audience from scratch or emerge as a new thought leader, syndication can boost the power of your content.
Content syndication gives a perfect opportunity to reach your potential audience. If you play it the other way around, you can publish other publication’s content on your website. This way you’ll never run out of fresh content.
