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Article Syndication


What is article syndication?

Article syndication is where an article or a section of an article is made available for others to use. This can be done through a variety of methods, including:

RSS/Web Feeds

A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Websites syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing others to subscribe to it. In most cases, there are two scenarios whereby a website can publish a feed link on their web pages:

  • End users register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or news reader) running on their own machines.
  • Other websites place the feed within the body of their website.

When instructed or at certain intervals, the aggregator or website checks to see if the feed has been updated with new content.

All our websites automatically get their RSS feeds created for them if they are using the database marketing software in conjunction with one of our websites. It appears within the footer and looks like this: rss

Community/Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, classify and share web pages. Typically, on a social bookmarking website, users store lists of useful or interesting resources on the Internet. Other users with similar interests can then view these lists. Some example websites include:

  • Digg - is a community-based popularity website in which news and other articles are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front of the digg website through a user-based ranking system. The website article listing software allows end users to submit articles to digg so that they can attract more traffic to your website and increase your PageRank.
  • StumbleUpon - is a web browser plugin which allows users to discover and rate web pages, photos and news articles.
  • Del.icio.us - is a non-hierarchical keyword categorisation system, whereby users tag each of their bookmarks with a number of freely chosen words. A combined view of everyone's bookmarks with a given tag is available; for instance, the URL http://del.icio.us/tag/wiki displays all of the most recent links tagged "wiki".

Licensing articles for use in emails and on websites

By giving others permission to use your full articles on their own websites or in their email newsletters, you're providing other websites with the incentive to link to you as part of the license agreement for them to use your article.

There are many websites that you can submit your directories to. Make sure you choose directories where their PageRank is high. Some directories include:

Benefits of syndication

  • Brand name awareness - When your articles are publised on numerous websites and newsletters across the web, with your company's name displayed in the byline of those articles, you start to become well known. If visitors frequently encounter your name when reading articles, they will automatically start to believe you are an expert or authority on the subject.
  • Attracting visitors to your website - When visitors read your articles on other websites, they arrive at your website hoping to find more relevant articles. Your articles need to contain relevant and helpful information to ensure users don't percieve it as an advertisment in disguise.
  • Increasing your PageRank on Google - Google counts a website's importance by the number of links that point to it. Naturally, when you write articles and others link to these articles or to your website as a requirement in the license, your PageRank improves.


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