Content syndication networks have come on strong in recent years.
These networks are similar to ad networks like Google and Yahoo Bing, but they focus specifically on promoting other content like blog posts, articles and other similar types of content.
You’ve probably seen these content ads on popular sites like CNN, Forbes, etc. The ads will usually be at the bottom of the articles next to the “Related Posts” sections. There will usually be a similar list of posts with something like “Similar Articles Around The Web”.
Sometimes they’ll have images and other times it will just be text.
There are a variety of different ways content syndication networks will show content. Some will show the URL or source of the information. Others will hide it. Some of the content can get a little spammy with R-rated images or headlines with get rich quick promises.
But legitimate blogs are having success with content syndication networks and that’s why we’re going to cover how you can use these networks to successfully market your blog.
First, we’re going to look at the options for content syndication networks and then we’ll go over the steps for creating campaigns.
Let’s get into it.
Outbrain
Outbrain has been getting a lot of press in the content syndication or content discovery industry. They’re one of the leaders and seem to be providing a great cost per click or cost per visitor for users.
Some examples put the cost per click at around $0.25 to $0.50. That’s a pretty good cost per click if you compare it to some of the other paid options listed in this guide.
Zemanta
Zemanta is similar to Outbrain. Your posts are syndicated across a network that includes hundreds of thousands of publishers including popular news sites and blogs.
Zemanta, like the others in this list, does much of the heavy lifting for you. After adding your titles and URLs, Zemanta works to put the content in front of the right people. You have control over the image and title you choose to use and Zemanta provides analytics so you can see what works best in their network.
The goal with this provider and the others is not to pass link juice as was common with some SEO tactics. This is all about referring domains that will refer traffic to your blog. The links won’t count toward SEO, but they will send traffic.
And that traffic will be interested in reading your best blog content. It has potential to be much more effective than a regular ad because blog posts can earn trust and get new visitors to opt-in to email.
Taboola
Taboola is a content syndication platform more like Outbrain and Zemanta. It has a variety of publishers large and small including Politico. They deliver content including blog posts, videos and other branded content to the stable of publishers, pushing audiences back to the source of the content from “Around the web” as it often says next to the articles.
The engine chooses where your articles will best fit and learns over time where you’ll get the best engagement and what content will perform the best. Taboola seems to be securing more success with video marketing content, which could be more important in the coming years as more web users demand video content as well as text-based content.
ZergNet
ZergNet can call companies like AOL and MTV clients. You can promote your blog post on ZergNet where it will be promoted on relevant sites. People reading articles, watching video and looking at other content will see your blog post promoted. They’ll visit your site giving you traffic and an opportunity to earn new subscribers.
Creating Campaigns
For each of these networks you create basically the same type of campaign. You select the content you want to promote and let the syndicate start working on getting it in front of the right audience.
Step 1 – Select The Posts To Promote
Titles again are incredibly important for content syndicating. Your posts need to stand out against related posts on the site where your posts are promoted and you’re competing against the other posts that are promoted with your posts.
Choose titles based on how successful your posts have been. Pick your top ten all time top trafficked posts. Another option would be to share the posts that have gotten the most social shares or most traffic from social media. This indicates that people liked those particular titles.
Step 2 – Analyze The Results
Choose about 10 posts to test. If you can, do more. You’ll only pay for the clicks that come through and you can limit your budget so you won’t overspend.
See what titles get the most response. Tweak current titles to fit the formulas that are doing well and over time see what posts get the most clicks. From there you can expand the program to include the titles that have the best chance of succeeding.
Step 3 Create Content Based On Content Syndication Network Results
Over time, you’ll get feedback on the type of posts that your target audience wants to read.
You can use the results from content syndication networks to lead you into the type of content you should be creating. You’ll know that there is an audience for this content so you can be comfortable knowing you’ll get traffic from your campaigns. And you’ll most likely get traffic from other channels too.
Conclusion
Content syndication is not new, but it’s much more organized today.
The services will help you deliver content to targeted audiences. You’ll get analytics around the posts and titles that do the best to drive traffic back to your blog. Use those analytics to put the best content in the networks and you can even use it to create the type of posts your target audience demands.
You can also build on your own content sharing network and have members not only share content across social media but include Related Posts sections on their blogs.
It’s a method that’s been used by bloggers for years as a way to help each other grow and succeed.
Want more? Find other great tips within our other top guides on ways to build your blog audience.