Benefits of Article Syndication (And How to Do It Right)

Article syndication (sometimes called article marketing) is the practice of submitting your articles to others’ websites, newspapers, magazines, etc.

Several years ago, the main reason website owners used this strategy was to create backlinks to their web pages for SEO purposes. That tactic is not as effective now due to all of changes in Google’s algorithms, which is understandable as many people took advantage of the practice by spamming and attempting to manipulate the search engines to increase their page rankings.

However, submitting quality blog content to article directories can still be very effective in promoting your brand and website through the internet if it is done the right way.

The author of this article on Shout Me Loud explains this very well:

"If you consider article marketing as creating relevant and useful content meant for humans and not search engines, then the strategy can still prove to be quite effective, provided you practice it right and do not make it the focus of your SEO campaign."

Distributing your blog articles to the directories is an affordable and simple online marketing tool because you can re-purpose the quality content that you have already have written for your blog, which includes topics related to your niche.

Article Syndication is beneficial to a small business owner who has a blog for various reasons:

Exposure

Submitting articles to the article directories exposes the author to a new audience that they do not have on their blog. This is because the articles that are published on the article directories are visible to more people who might be interested in knowing more about the services, product or the niche that you write about. This creates an opportunity for you to have more people visit your website.

Brand Awareness

Writing and submitting quality articles to the article directories shows your expertise in your niche or topic. This has a brand value because the articles establish your authority on a particular field. Since the bio/resource box of the published articles will display the name of your company or brand, your company or product will become well-known to the readers. Thus, when readers come across your products or recommendations chances are that they will consider them over those of your competitors.

Website Traffic

Syndicated content can direct more traffic to a website. This is because article directories allow you to include a link to your website in the bio/resource box. When readers find the content of your article interesting or beneficial to them, they will follow that link to learn more about the niche or topic. Thus, submitting articles to article directories increases relevant traffic to your website because the articles are read by the target audience.

In order for Article Syndication to work properly and effectively, keep these tips in mind:

Content

The submitted articles must be informative and relevant to the target readers in order to capture their attention and interest. Therefore, if you write personal blog posts and informative posts on your blog, make sure you use the articles from your best informative posts when submitting to article directories. Also make sure you choose articles that are a certain length… most directories only require 400 words, but some require 500 words. I have found my longer articles do better in the directories (between 850-1,000 words).

Article Directories

The article directories where you submit your articles must be reputable with high rankings on the search engine or Google to enhance the visibility of your articles. It is also important that you select a few directories where to submit your articles so that Google and the other search engines do not feel like you are being "spammy" (this recent article about Article Syndication on Business 2 Community actually discusses this). I would suggest no more than 10 directories. Make sure the directories allow you to choose what category to use when submitting your articles as you want them to be properly categorized so the right people can find your topic.

Now we come to the main reason I have written this article… Duplicate Content and Google

I am sure many of you have read articles online about the fear of duplicate content when syndicating your blog content. Many frown upon this strategy, but as long as you do not attempt to deceive or manipulate the search engines, there is no reason Google should penalize you by not indexing your site.

The following is what Google includes in their guidelines about duplicate content:

“In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results.”

When someone distributes their article to 100’s of article directories (and other websites), Google may look at that as manipulative strategy… especially if the articles are not quality material and the sites publishing your articles are not reputable or ranked by Google.

Therefore, if you submit to the reputable article directories online and you submit quality content, there is no reason your website should be penalized by Google.

I have been submitting articles to a handful of directories for myself and other clients since 2010 and I have not been notified of any duplicate content issues. My blog posts that I have used for article syndication have always been indexed and still are to this day.

So if you keep the above tips in mind when submitting articles, duplicate content issues can be avoided and the set marketing goals can be achieved with ease.

Extra Tip: Recently, I noticed that Google added a section to the duplicate content guidelines that you may want to incorporate with your article syndication procedures. I have started adding the links to my blog posts in the bio/resource box with my articles if the article directory is not a “no-follow” directory (many directories are changing to this by using the noindex meta tag, including EzineArticles.com, ArticleTrader.com and ArticleSnatch.com). As Google mentions, this will help them understand where the original content is housed, which is my website.

“If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you'd prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.”

Conclusion

Many companies are still using article syndication as a strategy for increasing their brand awareness (and many marketing experts still recommend it). It enables them to provide content to the audience that is interested in their niche or subject matter. This increases the likelihood of the audience wanting to learn more about their content, products or services. Just remember… article syndication must be done properly in order to achieve the set content marketing goals.