Think of a blog article as a seed. Next think about a big garden where you want to grow repeats of that article. What you need to do is get a bunch of those seeds and throw them everywhere. Basically that is the concept of content syndication. In other words syndicating your content means getting it shared on various websites across the area of the internet you want to cover. While this sounds easy enough, hold on there, Farmer Jones. There are some key points to take into consideration.
Related article: Internet Marketing Tip: Syndication
You want to:
- Know who your target market is
- Locate places that your prospects hangout
- Create quality content which people will love to share
- Syndicate your content to highly ranked authoritative sites
Let’s take a look at each point in more depth:
Know Who Your Target Market Is
This is a key factor which all good businesses should know. You should be tracking your statistics as well as identifying just who and where your target market is located.
By compiling this information you will discover if your target market uses sites like Instagram or Pinterest over Facebook. You will know that they are in your locale and about their age group, their level of schooling and their income bracket.
All of these details allow you to create a solid local internet marketing plan which incorporates content syndication.
Create Quality Content which People will Love to Share
The most important aspect of your seed is that it has to be grade A. Your content has to be incredible. Why? The face of the internet is changing and all sites need to be more open to sharing. This popularity can be seen by the emergence of social media sites such as Facebook and Google+.
With this in mind you want to create content that is more in depth and provides helpful information to your readers. In-depth articles are now being positioned by Google as the optimal way to create content. A recent post from Copyblogger, How to Write the In-Depth Articles that Google Loves, discusses this brand new trend:
Writer Demian Farnworth discusses various aspects of what an in-depth article should contain. Here’s a quick excerpt:
“What’s clear is that articles between 2,000 and 5,000 words in length and written by big brands dominate these new search results….
Google uses optimized metadata to find and properly index your content. The microdata we are talking about includes:
Headline
SEO title tag
A crawlable and indexable image
Description
Date published
Article body”
Using this length of article for content syndication purposes is relatively new, and it is something that we will keep you updated on. For now though, use these guidelines to create your own quality posts. It is critical to follow the trends for Google and to adhere to them as much as possible.
Locate Places Where Your Prospects Hangout
By understanding your local target market you will also be armed with the information on the top sites they visit. You will know which forums and blogs they prefer to use and can target the same places to connect with them.
Related article: Inbound Marketing Strategy: Learning about Baby Boomers
This allows you to create specific content which answers any questions they might have. You can then write your own post regarding these topics. Next you can do one of two things. Post this article on your own blog and then link to it when you comment on related blogs. Or you can contact the webmaster of a high profile site and offer it to the webmaster as a guest post.
In this post we have barely scratched the surface of content syndication for internet marketers. As an online marketer you can make use of article directories, social sharing sites, document sharing sites and press releases. All of these are great content syndication methods.
One piece of advice: create a local internet marketing plan that incorporates content syndication and social sharing to reap the best rewards for your business.
Syndicate Your Content to Highly Ranked Authoritative Sites
The final part of your gardening effort is that you want those seeds growing in the best part of the garden. Therefore, your goal when it comes to syndicating your content is to get your content on highly visible sites in your industry. A good example site would be to target the Huffington Post. Any company who gets featured here will see an upsurge in traffic to their site.
Your first step is to research sites that are considered to be industry leaders and then start leaving comments on relevant posts. Your comments should be clear, concise and informative. This will entice visitors back to your site and it will position your business as a source to be reckoned with.
Take-Aways:
- Know your local inbound market personas
- Where do they congregate
- Write epic content-both in size and quality
- Find the best places to syndicate. Don’t settle.
Watch your garden grow as people come to your website from those syndicated sites.
Where have you been syndicating?
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook - www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.