Question: We have a decent readership on our company blog, but we are looking for more visibility from the content we create. Do you have any suggestions for how we can get more value out of each piece of content that we create?
As much as content marketing is growing, I can completely understand your point for wanting to take each piece of content further. Whether you are a small business that creates only a small amount of content or a large organization that is pumping out dozens of articles on a daily/weekly basis, making your content reach further is a great way to get more eyeballs and potentially more prospects/customers engaged in your business.
One of the things that I highly recommend for most businesses is to consider syndication opportunities. For those unfamiliar with what I mean by syndication, the idea is to allow other sites, with proper attribution back to your website, to share your post in entirety. Many media outlets, blogs and partner company sites are looking for content to share, and many of them are willing to share high quality content with their audience even if it has been shared elsewhere.
Also, for companies that have multiple websites and divisions, the use of syndication is a great way to have your content reach multiple audiences on more than one occasion.
A few of the concerns for the practice of syndication are the potential negative effects on SEO and the question as to whether people will get discouraged by seeing the same content multiple times.
In terms of the SEO issue, if the site that is sharing your content gives proper attribution and you have properly set up your Google Authorship, the detriment to SEO should be negligible. Now if you are highly dependent on SEO rather than social and subscribers to find your content then I do recommend that you have a professional SEO opinion given prior to syndicating. Having said that, in my experience the benefits of syndication in terms of engagement and visibility far outweigh the negatives.
With regards to the second issue of content being seen too many times, I never worry about this as I don’t believe people monitor this as closely as you may think. For the most part people scan content and as much as we love our content, people don’t even notice much of the time that they have already seen something because there is such a volume of similar content out there. If anything, the multiple channels gives you a better chance of having the content that you have created be seen.
What I Recommend For Content Syndication Strategies
Find appropriate channels to connect with: Think about partner companies, vertical and horizontal supply chain partners and influential bloggers that cover your industry and see what opportunities exist to syndicate content. Many sites have “Become a contributor” contact info where you can submit your ideas.
Maximize Your Owned Properties: Companies with multiple blogs and websites should definitely consider sharing across multiple platforms. I do this by cross sharing content on this site with my other blog Millennial CEO and vice versa.
In short, the goal is for your content to reach far and wide. Sometimes guest posting is an option, but sometimes your already created content is more than enough to satisfy a new audience.
Are you considering the power of syndicating content?
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