syndicating content for free

Anthony Coundouris, Thinker

Syndicating content is a fast way to create back-links to a website, and improve SEO fast. Search engines treat links pointing to sites as a top factor when assigning page rankings.

Syndication sites make it easy to submit articles as links from a website, and distribute the content across many more websites. Done properly, each instance of syndicated content creates a back link (a link from a high traffic site to your site), which equates to brand awareness and improved visibility online.

Content is king

No site syndicating content will publish material that is not grammatically correct, and newsworthy. Take the time to write interesting, insightful work that is worth reading.

Typically, it is a good idea to review the editorial guidelines of websites before submitting articles. Most sites like articles around 600 to 900 words since the internet is a quick medium.

To maximise the readability of the article, frequently paragraph and add subheads to catch attention.

Build back links

Many syndication sites will not reprint links inside the body of the article. However, it is acceptable to place a link to the writer or website in the author's info, or resource box. Author's info refers to the single sentence at the bottom of the article. Here's an example.

About the Author:
Anthony Coundouris is a director for Firestarter Pte Ltd http://www.firestarter.com.sg/ and King's Advisor http://kingsadvisor.blogspot.com/.

Be careful the news sites that syndicate your content without using the rel="nofollow" tag. Nofollow tags tell Google not to follow the link, robbing your site of precious page ranking. You can find them by viewing the source code, and searching for this script.

Disclaimer

When you syndicate content, you still own the copyright. Include a disclaimer which places some restrictions on how the content can be repurposed. For example 'Webmasters are free to reprint this article provided it is not edited, the author's information is included, and the links are included as live links.'

Distributing articles¹

There are different methods (paid or free), with varying degrees of automation, to syndicate content. Start with free sites, and manually submit content until you become more familiar with the publisher.

With so many sites to choose from, focusing on quality sites is important. Here are a few worth considering. Industry relevance and page ranking are two important factors to consider when narrowing your choice.

Google assigns a page rank from 0-10 on all pages on the internet⁵. The score gives you an idea of how well linked that page is. Building your own page rank depends on you get links from other sites that have a high page rank. Determine the score by installing a Google Toolbar to your browser.

According to SocialSEO³, these sites are a sure bet.

http://goarticles.com/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.freewebarticles.com/
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.isnare.com/
http://www.MyWebAuthor.com/

Submitting articles to Ezines

If your content is good, Ezines will generally pickup the article and reprint it. However, you can approach them directly, but be careful not to appear pushy.

A few good Ezine lists would be Ezine Universe, Topica, the Ezine Directory².

More site to syndicate content⁶

Automating syndication

With so much RSS content available on the internet, it is difficult to be found. Feedburner is a great tool to get your RSS feeds out there⁶.

Once you create an account for your syndicated content, Feedburner creates a page that lets people link to or subscribe to your content via email.

References

Written 23rd Aug 2009

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