 Syndication: Relieving Your Content Cares and Woes
By Shari Worthington
President
One of the greatest challenges of the World Wide Web is that you have to have something to say. And if you really want to make an impact, you have to have something compelling to say ...frequently. But we’re already maxed out trying to create great products, get top search engine rankings, optimize our pay per click ad conversions, generate publicity, improve customer service ... Holy cow, when do we have time to create great content?
The answer may very well be "syndication." Web syndication is when one web site makes its content available for "other sites" to use. "Other sites" can be mainstream mass media web sites that collect information by category and then transmit it to an individual’s news reader. Or "other sites" can be your web site, whereby you license relevant content from another site and post it on yours!
Syndication can be a win-win all around. For the receiving site, content syndication is an effective way of adding depth and frequency, making it more attractive to prospects and customers. For the transmitting site, syndication drives exposure, generating new traffic for the transmitting site.
In the automation industry, Control.com has announced a syndication program. Control.com is the big industry discussion board where thousands of engineers coalesce for Q&A on the latest turbine generators or debugging PLC errors. Now vendors can pick and choose from a list of topics and have those discussions posted on their site. For instance, Telemechanique syndicates Schneider and Modbus related content to the home page of their site, under "International Community," www.telemecanique.com. These peer discussions are a quick way to add Web 2.0 interactivity and social networking to what might otherwise be a dull and rarely updated site.
It’s time to start investigating syndication from both sides -- as a means to generate more content for your site and as a way to more regularly engage your customers and prospects. And before long, many users will be viewing regularly published online content via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. With RSS, individuals can read specially selected content without constantly visiting the sites. This is quickly becoming an important tool because web users are increasingly wary of providing personal information for marketing materials. More and more people expect the ability to subscribe to a feed instead.
So find some good content to syndicate, then set up an RSS feed on your site so you can broaden the reach of your own web marketing program.
Sample Content Syndication Resources:
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