What Is Content Syndication?
Syndication is the process of re-publishing your content on third-party websites. Typically, this means high-authority and high-traffic websites that can drive traffic back to your dispensary’s website. This may sound quite similar to guest posting, however, there is a big difference between the two.
When one of your articles is syndicated on a website, it has the potential to be picked up by other blogs for the purpose of re-syndication. Some content can even hit the jackpot by being picked up by industry-leading blogs or even news sites. Meanwhile, a guest post will only appear on the blog it is initially published on.
Syndication and guest posting both have their advantages. They both have the potential to increase your brand recognition and maybe even to drive traffic back to your website. Which one you choose to engage in should primarily depend on your starting position and marketing goals.
Syndicating content is an excellent way to get your brand and ideas in front of more eyes. However, if your main goal is to drive traffic directly to your website through your content, then guest posting may be a better strategy.
Why Should Your Dispensary Try It?
The primary advantage of syndicating content is gaining more visibility for your content. By giving your content legs and letting it run wild through the web, you can seriously boost brand awareness, brand recognition, and your social media following.
Moreover, if thought leadership is one of your marketing goals (being an information authority in your industry), syndicated content will be crucial to your success. For this purpose, syndicating content from other blogs onto your website can be extremely effective as well.
Syndication can be an especially effective strategy for newer websites and blogs. Even a well-designed and thoroughly executed content plan can take months to produce results through organic traffic. Syndicating new content can be a great way to jump-start the content marketing process by quickly building brand recognition and driving traffic from already established websites.
Strategies For Content Syndication
This all sounds great, but how exactly do you syndicate content?
The most important step is finding a syndication partner that will make the effort worthwhile. Many websites are open to syndication, and some even rely on it for the majority of their content. However, your main priority when considering a syndication partner should be to find one that features a large, high-quality, and high-traffic blog.
How do you get sites to publish your syndicated content? Primarily by producing relevant and high-quality content and successfully pitching it.
For some niche-oriented blogs, you may need to twist and tailor your content to their audience’s liking. For instance, a dispensary could achieve greater brand exposure by publishing an article related to the marketing side of the cannabis business and syndicating it on numerous marketing blogs.
Once you have found a site that you would like your dispensary’s content to be syndicated on, your next step should be to pitch the idea.
Many people struggle with pitches, mostly due to uncertainty around the quality of their own content, and to fear of rejection. However, by anticipating and addressing potential concerns and criticisms, you can improve your content’s chances of being accepted.
For more information about the pitching process and how to navigate it, take a look at Buzzstream’s definitive guide to content syndication.
The main downside to syndication is the risk of being penalized for publishing duplicate content. It is entirely possible (even likely) that content that has been syndicated by an authoritative site will actually rank higher in search engines than the website that the content initially appeared on. Nevertheless, there are several ways to avoid these kinds of issues. Check out Neil Patel’s article on how to deal with duplicate content for more information.
