Content Syndication For SEO: Boost Visibility Without Risking Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is always a problem for SEO marketers. If your site has such content, it becomes harder for search engines to figure out the original, and this results in lower rankings, indexing issues, and more. Creating fresh original content is a way to solve, but it is time-consuming. This is where syndicated content SEO helps. Understanding what is content syndication is a crucial factor. This is because, when executed right, it can boost online visibility, organic traffic and rankings. Let’s learn more about SEO content syndication and how it boosts your ranking and visibility.

Key Takeaways:

• Explain what content syndication is and how it impacts SEO
• The various benefits offered by syndicated content for marketers
• Some of the best content syndication best practices you can implement

What Is Content Syndication

A content syndication strategy allows you to republish your existing content on multiple websites and digital platforms to reach more people. We can also republish content that other users create on our sites to reach new audiences. So, what’s the main objective of content syndication SEO? First of all, it helps spread the word about your brand and services to broader users, thus attracting them to your site and boosting visibility. 

You don’t need to create new content for your site every time. As explained in the introduction, duplicate content, cannibalization in seo have been a concern for marketers over the years. By implementing content syndication, what impact does it have on SEO? It helps mitigate any potential SEO risks. However, there are certain risks involved. 

Republishing content means that a duplicate version of the original content now exists online. Since search engines focus on ranking original, valuable content, when presented with duplicate versions, they struggle to figure out which one is the main version. This dilutes site rankings, and this is why unique content is so important in SEO.

What are the benefits of content syndication?

Content syndication offers a ton of SEO benefits. Some of them include higher rankings in organic keyword searches, driving organic traffic, reaching a wider audience, etc. But there are even a lot more that are listed below:

Gain Newer Audiences

Republishing the same content helps gain new audiences and also saves time and effort creating new content.

Higher content engagement

By exposing your content to a larger audience, the chances of them interacting with and sharing the content with their audiences are higher. This enhances brand awareness. 

Builds site authority

Helps build authority and trust as your content appears on multiple third-party sites, digital forums, social media platforms, etc.

Earn valuable backlinks

Through SEO content syndication, you can earn backlinks for your website. This helps drive traffic to your site and improve search engine rankings, making your content more visible to potential users.

Better lead-generation

Since your content reaches newer customers who are interested in the topics you cover, this approach can attract newer leads  

Analysing the Potential Risks

Despite the major benefits of content syndication, there are certain concerns with this approach, which can affect SEO and organic traffic. Two of the major ones are duplicate content and backlink penalties.

But wait, isn’t content syndication intended to avoid this scenario? Technically, yes, but in some cases, search engines may display the syndicated content version on the SERPs instead of the original content. To make matters worse, search engines might even perceive the original content as a duplicate version of your site.

Even if your syndicated content SEO appears on different websites and vice versa, Google doesn’t actually penalize such content, but it will act against the websites having such content types that offer no value. This is partly due to Google’s deduplication system, whose objective is to identify redundant content and minimize showing it to users. Understanding how this works is essential for marketers leveraging content syndication.

Another issue is the backlink penalties. While SEO content syndication is a great way to generate backlinks, this can result in penalties if not handled properly. Google has explicit guidelines against link schemes. This arises when creating or generating a large number of links quickly for manipulating page rankings.  Also, syndicating your content on spammy sites just for getting backlinks is more likely to be treated as less valuable by search engines, and this harms your website’s reputation.

How to syndicate content? The good news is that various strategies are available, which can potentially solve all these issues of content syndication for SEO, and some of them are highlighted in the next section.

Content syndication best practices

If you have understood what is content syndication, then it’s time to learn some of the best practices to maximise the benefits and minimise the potential SEO risks.

Publish content first before syndicating

One of the ways to avoid syndicated content SEO issues is to publish the content on your site first, then syndicate it later. That’s far simpler to execute and is effectively telling search engines that your content version is the original.

Use canonical tags

Canonical tags are HTML elements that signal to search engines the original URL if multiple URLs are pointing to the same or similar content. In the case of SEO and content syndication, using canonical tags helps avoid duplicate content issues. Suppose you have published content on your site and are republishing it on third-party sites. Adding tags that point to the original content allows search engines to know that yours is the main version.

The basic format of the canonical tag looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.example.com/original-version/” />

Work with content syndication partners

Various sites distribute external content, often known as syndicate partners. By working with them, your content can reach a wider audience without much effort. It is important to look for reputable websites that offer free content promotion. This is because the links generated from them are considered valuable by search engines.

Leverage social media for syndicated content SEO promotion

Republishing third-party content or your content on your website can reach newer users. You can utilise your social media channels to promote articles published on third-party websites. Apart from getting more people to interact with the published content, social media is a great way to build long-lasting relationships with your syndication networks.

Make sure to include backlinks

If you are republishing your content syndication SEO on external websites, make sure to add backlinks that point to the original content on your website. This strategy lets search engines know that your site contains the original content.

Tailor existing content to suit multiple platforms

Your site will have certain webpages that might be valuable and performing well in terms of rankings. You can repurpose them to suit different content syndication SEO channels. For example, if you have a valuable blog post, it can be adapted into an article for LinkedIn. This process helps maximise your content reach and caters to different audience needs.

Winding Up

SEO content syndication is a cost-effective and time-saving strategy to generate more reach for your existing content. It does have a positive impact when it comes to SEO, such as increased reach and exposure, higher user engagement, and reduced negative factors, such as duplicate content issues etc. However, by following the various syndication strategies explained above, all such issues shouldn’t be a concern.
At GTECH Information Technology, our professional team is well-versed in the concepts of content syndication, SEO, and other digital marketing services for enhancing brand growth. By collaborating with us, we formulate the best content syndication strategy tailored to your brand that expands your digital presence and maximizes the positive impact of your shared content.