Content Syndication Services | The Good, Bad and The Ugly Syndicators

Content syndication is a neccesary part of your online marketing strategy these days. With social networks in the hundreds of millions and individuals building large and attentive followings the reality is that a good content syndication strategy, supported by the right set of tools and the correct technique can take your business to the next level and can position thousands of targeted website visitors in front of your product or service in a matter of days. The difficulty is doing this on your own; it takes time, focus and a dedicated plan of action leaving little time for those all important online business tasks such as product design and development, customer service and cashflow management. So, that said, let's take a closer look at a few services to see what's out there to take some of the workload away and help you build your online empire using the power of content syndication.

Content syndication is simply a system or method that allows the republishing of articles, news items, press releases, blog posts, videos or any other form of original material through various social media channels.

On the internet, there are quite literally thousands of different media properties to distribute content to, creating an accessible and powerful means of distributing your content.

There are many out there already arguing the point that syndicating your content could be the most critical factor that keeps your internet business afloat in the next few years. Natural traffic is essential for your success online and with the price of paid advertising, more and more website owners have realised the future is in their own content creating hands if they are to gain higher search engine visibility and rankings.

One of the most common misconceptions about social media marketing (SMM) in general…and about using content syndication tools and services, is that it’s about creating artificial back-links. Content syndication when used correctly should generate in bound “Social Buzz” as it's primary goal and natural back-links and references as a secondary bi-product. It is accepted by many that "Social Buzz" is in itself a ranking factor and one which will help you to get the kind of visibility you're looking for. But it shouldn't be confused with back-link building, which is a unique and equally important part of your online marketing plan.

Although it is possible with the use of software to create or force “anchor text” with a submission to a social network or bookmarking site, this is not natural and gets frowned upon by the social networks. Many are now adding a no-follow attribute to these links and sites themselves are beginning to de-index multiple submissions with identical anchor text, descriptions and tags and suspend users accounts.

There are a number of content syndication services out there in the marketplace and with some research and a clear picture of your needs you can find the right service to meet you business objectives. If you're a serious publisher then here are my top three content syndication platforms for you to think about in no particular order:

• Daylife

Daylife is a cool aggregation and distribution tool. This platform pulls different content from right across the web, ads it to your own and then distributes it to your website where deemed relevant. This is a great way to build content for your niche specific site fast and with real depth, so there is no surprize this is in my top three content syndication services. It's content distribution partners include Newsweek, The Washington post, USA Today, Sky News,and a few more to make this a powerful and potentially viral marketing tool for your social media campaigns.

• Sphere

Sphere lets you to syndicate your content on high-traffic websites and increase your overall website visibility. You can distribute relevant content automatically to places like The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Newsweek and a number of other high-traffic sites. For the big fish this pond offers a lot; the ability to integrate contextual articles and videos on other sites and a purpose built redistribution widget to carry your content even further. The widget itself is the key to how this service (which is free to use) is monetized. Ad agencies pay a fee to advertise through the Sphere widget on partner websites and with big platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad and a number of others on the menu it looks like this is a fairly lucrative partnership.

• Gigya

Gigya is another widget based content syndication platform and a pretty good one at that. It offers the ability for you to track and earn from your content through the distribution and sharing of web widgets. The entire benefits of the Gigya service is better understood from inside your own account but if you're looking for a way to add revenue as well as content to your site then this could be for you.

Content syndication can feel like an uphill battle at times and if you've been feeling left behind in the great race to build an internet based fortune and maybe you're starting to wonder if it's really worth all your effort and time writing articles, blog posts and creating videos for a handful of viewers to see then I hope this article has helped you to find a clear path to syndication and a way to move forward with your content syndication strategy.