Content syndication on the web is defined as the mass publication of a single article, podcast or video (content assets) across many outlets. In a nutshell: Write once, spread everywhere.

Syndicating your content has obvious benefits—expose more people to your message—but it also plays a vital part in search engine optimization. As the search engines see more of your message online, pointing back to your website, they give more weight to your site. This is one of the most natural and powerful ways to build links to your website. But, the real bonus is that these articles, videos and podcasts are being found in places with far more traffic than your website, such as YouTube, iTunes and Squidoo, and some of those people are clicking through to your site.

Content syndication is a key element to traffic building, and it helps with both article marketing and search engine optimization. I’m always a fan of leveraging a little bit of work into a whole lot of results, and that’s what good content asset and some content syndication can do for you!

Icons used in the info graphic courtesy of Icon Drawer.

On May 6th, 2010, twelve days ago, I posted a short blog post titled “What is a content asset?” Admittedly, not an extremely competitive key phrase, but a term with moderate competition (26 million results in Google), that is used regularly in internet marketing.

I created and optimized this phrase for the term that I titled the post, “what is a content asset,” and built just a few links to the page (about five).

Less than two weeks later, I noticed the term in our top ten search engine keywords in our traffic sources. So, I started to review the rankings and this is what I found.

Google
#3 for “What is a content asset”
#4 for What is a content asset (no quotes)
#12 for content asset

Yahoo
#1 for “What is a content asset”
#1 for what is a content asset
#6 for content asset

Bing
#1 and #2 (via Linked In) for “What is a content asset”
Not in the first four pages for content asset.

And, I expect these rankings to improve as we build more links to the article.

To recap, here is the process I used for posting this article:

• Create a WordPress blog post, using an SEO plugin to set the page title and keywords.
• Matched the page title, URL file name and H1 tag exactly to our keyword target: what is a content asset?
• Linked to the post with two Twitter accounts, one Linked In account, one Facebook link and one Digg link.

I did this all in about an hour. Then, I moved onto other business unrelated to this post—only to be brought back to analyze this post because it came up so high in our traffic sources so quickly. I’d like to point out that we write articles like this all the time, some of which rise to the top while others do not. But, it’s this collective and fragmented keyword strategy that brings us our complete traffic. Frankly, we are unsure which will be the home runs, so we make lots of concerted efforts to increase our likelihood of winning.

This is a concrete example of the work we do for our clients, and a big part of our own internet marketing.

Success came from identifying related keywords to our market, generating an optimized article and building quality links to that page. Assuming that we have the right call to actions that will lead interested lurkers into buyers or subscribers, we’ll be earning a respectable return on our investment on this content asset soon.

It’s these things that take a little more commitment to get done if you want results. For example, as business owners, we all know that we need to do at least some accounting, customer service and selling – even if they aren’t our strengths.

For many professionals, you can add blogging to the list.

Like sales, you shouldn’t ignore blogging if you want to get maximum results out of your business. Yet, many of us start with the best of intentions and then taper off, and your blog becomes the dusty treadmill in the basement—creating guilt each time you think about it.

The guilt is because we know that blogging, just like using that treadmill, will get us the results we really want. Yet, we procrastinate and get nothing out of our investment.

So, I offer a parallel mindset to any of you who have made the leap to a committing to a habit that you previously dreaded. Approach blogging like running.

Colleen at Hubspot wrote an insightful post this morning on this very subject. She presents this very sharp and true fact that many of us refuse to embrace:

Blogging is probably the most efficient and most effective way to drive traffic to your website. An hour or two per week and you are creating a marketing annuity. Like running guarantees to burn calories, blogging absolutely guarantees more, free, search-based traffic.

For me, like so many others, the efforts that require small, sustained tasks over time are the hardest to accomplish. But, those can also be the most satisfying accomplishments. You can blog, and you can generate large amounts of targeted traffic over time even if it isn’t your favorite thing to do. If you absolutely hate it, find someone to help you or turn your ideas into content. But, start today and keep it up.

The free and continuous traffic you look at in your logs a year from now will be more satisfying that any procrastination or excuses you can come up with today.

Check out Colleen’s post for more inspiration: Why Blogging is Like Running.