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.

Links to your web pages hold an obvious value: they bring new people to your website. That reason alone makes a case for building as many links to your web pages from relevant and high trafficked websites as possible. More links mean more people can find your site.

Less obvious, is that search engines, especially powerhouse Google, use the quantity and quality of links to your website as a strong factor in determining how you appear in search engine results.

Consider links from a website a vote of confidence. When a reputable third-party website links to you in a way that suggests you have content related to “sports psychology” the search engines place stock in that link. That’s the quality part. Additionally, the search engines consider numerous factors when determining quality, including the age of the domain, number of links to that referring site and even the extension of the domain (.gov and .edu domains cannot be purchased commercially, therefore they are harder to exploit).

It’s important to point out that the search engines only hint at how they determine search rankings—there is no black and white formula available, and these algorithms are being tweaked constantly. However, link building is one of the universally accepted efforts in search engine optimization.

It’s also important to build a high volume of links to your site, even if some of those are not considered high quality. Back to the original benefit of links: they bring in direct traffic as surfers stumble upon your site. Additionally, if the search engines see a consistent history of numerous links being generated pointing to your site each and every month, you’re sure to move up the rankings.

Lastly, today’s new site can become tomorrow’s high quality link. Get in on the ground floor, when the cost is the lowest.

In summary, link building is a fundamental exercise in traffic building, both directly and indirectly. If you’ve ever wondered why search engine optimization is an ongoing process that takes time and persistent effort, you should now understand that link building is a crucial ingredient, that should be done persistently over time.

A content asset is really just some piece of content that you can use as a business tool, either by monetizing it directly (purchasable book) or using it to attract new customers (free article). Often, this content asset is repackaged and distributed in numerous formats and mediums. Think about how a movie is first released on the big screen, broken down into small parts for trailers and web previews, then taken to DVD, then presented on TV. Each time the asset is used, it’s just a variation of the original working in some other way.

On the web, content assets are typically articles, e-books, podcasts or videos. These anchor content assets can be broken up into smaller chunks and used as blog posts, tweets, You Tube shorts, email blasts and even search engine ads. The point is, you develop it once, and if it’s a valuable tool to generate new business, you’re going to want to break it up and use it across as many mediums and channels as you think you can without diminishing its value.

The above examples show how large content assets can be divided and distributed. Additionally, content assets can be aggregated and then distributed. There have been numerous books published recently that are simply large collections of blog posts edited and assembled in a thematic or chronological way.

if you’re involved in search engine optimization, what you’re optimizing are your content assets. If you’re involved in social media marketing, you’re likely using bite size ideas that come from a larger article or white paper, which are also content assets. And, if you’re creating a podcast or You Tube videos, those too can be used in an array of ways on the web to generate more business.

Inventory your site or file server and see what kind content assets you have in your inventory that can be taken advantage of to generate new business. Think: create once, reuse many times.

I often compare it to professional networking or losing weight, as it isn’t rocket science, but it does require a sustained effort of many different types of activities. And, when you don’t see results immediately, it can be difficult to maintain your effort level.

The web is saturated with articles suggesting SEO tactics, but there is little information about how the search engines define their rankings. This is due to the ever-changing nature of these formulas.

While the full details of search engine results is above the scope of any single article, SEO Moz does a bang-up job of summarizing the high impact items used to influence the results. The most current Search Engine Ranking Factors article is online here, and sums up the top factors clearly and visually.

It seems that while there are many new tactics and tools always becoming available, but nothing has unseated good ol’ fashioned quality link building and content publishing.

If you don’t know where to start, and you want to invest time in your search engine rankings, start writing relevant and attractive content. If you’re writing what your customers want to know about, there’s a good chance they will link to it. Over time, with a little bit of sustained effort, you’ll be sure to increase your traffic and search engine rankings.

Write for your customers and promote the content (using Digg, Twitter, etc). It’s a fundamental strategy for SEO.