How to Scale Your Backlinks with Syndicated Content

Picture this- you have put significant time and effort behind making high-quality content, but your site doesn’t get many visitors. By using content syndication, you can get new readership from that content.
Content syndication is an old tactic in the books, which has always been effective. It helps expose your content to a larger audience. People can also see your expertise on the matter.
While it sounds similar to guest blogging, there are some apparent differences. Syndicated content gives both sides free benefits, while the author doesn’t have to follow too many guidelines.
In this article, we explained syndicated content and scaling your backlinks with it. We also made a comparison between this method, guest blogging, and repurposing.
Also, note that this article describes things mostly from the point of view of the content creator, not the syndicator. So, when we say ‘you,’ we are referring to the syndicated partner.
Table of Contents
What Is Content Syndication?
Content syndication is when a media or website republishes the content of another individual, institute, or site. It means that the content has already been published once elsewhere (unlike guest blogging).
The republishing happens with the consent of both parties, and it lets new readers find that content.
As we said, content syndication is an old technique. It dates back to the era before the World Wide Web. Newspapers, magazines, televisions, etc., used to perform content syndication, too.
Sometimes, the content republisher doesn’t publish the entire thing and only keeps an engaging bit. It encourages readers to find the full content on the original address.

Another thing to note is that the republishing site or media doesn’t have to be larger than the original publisher. They can be of the same domain authority. The main purpose of it is to get new readers, after all.
Benefits of Content Syndication
There are some grand advantages of content syndication. It helps almost all parties involved (if the content is high-quality). For example-
- It helps the author or publisher get new readers on their content and potentially get new followers or leads.
- It helps the syndicator site get free content, adding value to their audience.
- It helps the audience on the syndicator site get a new, high-quality, and helpful piece to read.
- It lets you get a backlink from the syndicated content, which can help your SEO.
- It is a great way to garner brand trust. Syndicating your content to a larger site may build trust in the audience on your content’s credibility.
Potential Disadvantages of Content Syndication
Content syndication does possess some risks. You must stay careful about them. Here are three examples of potential issues you may face because of this process-
- Since your content is republished on another site, you may lose some brand ‘juice.’ Sadly, not all readers will follow the post link and visit your site.
In fact, some will still take it as if that post belongs to the syndicator, ignoring the ‘source’ part.
- If you are successful with the process, it may bring too many backlinks. It may make Google suspicious about black hat SEO attempts (despite it being not).
As such, many prioritize guest blogging or repurposing over syndication since those don’t have this risk.
- Finally, when someone searches with the target keyword of the syndicated content, the SERP page may show the syndicated post way above your original post.
As such, the syndicated post may benefit from it way more than you. In this case, using the canonical tag to signal Google about the identity of the original post is a must.
Types of Content Syndication
You can divide content syndication in various ways, as there is no official categorization.
However, many believe the ‘content syndication tiers’ to be a valid division since it shows three types of syndication.
The general rule of thumb is to focus on Tier 1 first, followed by Tier 2, and then Tier 3. Let’s explain each tier below.
Tier One Content Syndication: Offsite Publishing
Tier one is the most well-known form of content syndication, where your content gets published on an already renowned magazine or website.
These websites, organizations, or magazines are the source material for many, allowing your content to get much exposure.
If you kept your content only on your site, the readership would be very low. If your site or brand is still new, your content will normally be limited to local readers and small-scale publishers.
Moreover, you can only publish your content in niche blogs instead of going for broad and national-level posts that popular magazines do.
Another way this syndication works is through citations. The syndicator doesn’t need to post your whole content but can only put excerpts of it or cite it. It works somewhat like backlinks but better.
However, in order for national-level magazines or news outlets to cite your works, it must include original research. For example, this is a news syndicated by Yahoo News-

Meanwhile, the content owner previously posted it on NextShark with a lower readership. Due to the sharing of Yahoo News, their readership skyrocketed.

Tier Two Content Syndication: Social Media Syndication
Syndication doesn’t always mean the republishing of your content by another publisher. It can also be you doing the republishing, which is how social media syndication works.
So, suppose you published your content on your website. Now, it is not getting the readership it deserves. You then follow these steps-
- Creating a summary or excerpt of your title or piece (one that creates curiosity)
- Post it on your social media profile or page
- Add a link to your original post so that people can go and read it
However, you don’t simply do it once. It is somewhat like an advertisement you repeat after a few weeks or months because many may have missed it the first time.
Some advantages of social media content syndication are-
- It is easier to get people’s attention on social media since there are standard ways to do it.
- You can redistribute your content several times to get a new audience.
- Most social media platforms have their own content-boosting offers you can pay for and use to promote your content to a broader audience.
Since each social media may have a completely different structure, environment, and user base, your content distribution and sharing approach must be suitable for each. Cater to your audience.
For example, the excerpt of your title on Facebook will differ from it on LinkedIn.
Tier Three Content Syndication: Influencers
People love to follow someone famous as part of a community, and that gives birth to influencers. You can get the former’s attention if the latter publishes or shares your content.
For example, suppose your blogs are about skincare products. You will find numerous influencers in this niche.
If one of them with a high follower count recommends your blog to their audience, you will get flocks of audience.
The way to approach this is-
- Creating short and bespoke pitches (like in influencer outreach)
- Following up if necessary
- Keeping an ongoing relationship with them.
Remember that an influencer won’t necessarily keep promoting your content but will only do so occasionally. So, you may have to target several at once through email bursts.
Email burst is the process of sending mass emails (mostly cold emails) to a high number of people, offering or requesting them on a deal or something.
Even after you complete these three types of content syndication, you may still have many things to do. For example-
- Subscriber Feed, AKA RSS feed, is the process of publishing notification or news of any new content on the website for the subscribers.
Imagine a news board in real life. You can subscribe to it and add specific authors to your list. When those authors post something, you will find new news posted on that board. An RSS feed is something like that.
The following icon represents an RSS feed. Clicking such a symbol on a site’s page will take you to its RSS feed.

- Paid organic traffic is another method for syndication. This traffic is people who come to read your content through online advertisements. Using social media boosters also falls into this.
Repurposing vs Guest Blogging vs Syndication
If you are familiar with repurposing or guest blogging, you may have found similarities between these two and syndication. However, they have differences in their intended use and execution method.
Let us introduce each below-
- Guest Blogging: Guest blogging refers to writing whole new content for a different site that never existed before.
You request permission from that other site, and once they give it, you follow their instructions to compose the piece. It often involves sending a backlink to your site.
- Repurposing: Repurposing is about taking one of your existing content and altering or changing bits and pieces, turning it into a different format.
For example, you can take a podcast episode, add footage, and make it a video. Another example is to turn a video into a blog post by mentioning all the key points.
- Syndication: Lastly, syndication means taking one of your existing content and getting it published on another site almost word for word.
You may have to change the title a bit, shift the structure, and some little touch-ups to make it follow the guidelines of the syndicator media or site. But that is all.
All three of the above have connections to SEO and digital marketing but are also dissimilar. You may need to use any or all of them at different phases of your business or site growth.
What Does Scaling Backlink Mean
Scaling backlinks is a successful point in your link-building campaign when your high SERP ranking grants you enough attention and visibility for your site to get regular natural backlinks.
At this point, your site probably gets high organic traffic daily, and backlinks come from websites with high domain authority (DA).
Content syndication is an excellent way to reach this point since it brings lots of organic traffic, boosting your online presence and visibility.
Scaling Your Backlinks with Syndicated Content
The following tips will help you create a strategy for your content syndication and give you a high value in return for your effort. Let’s begin.
Technical Aspects
Technical aspects are about optimizing your soon-to-be syndicating content to make it suitable for the process.
Fear of Google Penalties with Content Syndication
Many people are concerned about Google’s potential penalty for content syndication when they hear of it for the first time. It is understandable since Google does penalize repetitive content.
You see, many people used to post duplicate content in different domains to get more readership, and as a black hat SEO means.
So, you would often find the same article coming multiple times on the SERP. As a result, Google used to strike pages or sites that did that. However, things have changed.
Google understands the concept of content syndication now. It has gotten smart enough to differentiate legitimate syndication from nefarious duplication attempts.
So, how do you signal Google crawlers about your syndicated content? It is simple. Use a canonical tag (rel=’canonical’) on your original post. Google will consider it as the original piece afterward.

Nofollow Tags for Balancing Links
If done right, syndication will potentially bring many backlinks to your site. Meanwhile, your content may have lots of interlinking as well. It creates a massive number of links.
Google may suspect it to be a black hat link-building. Use the nofollow tag (rel=’nofollow’) on your internal links to prevent crawlers from crawling them. Your users can still use the links fine.
Off-Site Aspects
Off-site aspects include collaboration, networking, or negotiating with potential syndication partners. It also involves paying for syndication services or social media marketing boosters.
Brand Visibility
Yes, a syndicator site must mention the content source with the link. However, they often gloss over a proper promotion or shoutout. In most cases, you may not be capable of doing much about it.
However, try to get your brand mentioned on the syndicated content as much as possible. If possible, get your brand’s name, logo, etc., on the post.
It can boost your brand visibility significantly.
Paid Content Syndication
While Google usually dislikes paid things regarding backlinks, it is not a penalizable thing. After all, sponsored content exists. Most such sponsored content is actually paid syndication.

Yes, getting backlinks from these syndications won’t contribute to your SEO since Google doesn’t favor them. However, they can still send traffic your way.
Some common paid content syndication sites are Taboola, Outbrain, Dianomi, etc. If you are looking for more, check out Semrush Agency Partners service.

Another way you can find content syndication partners is via Google search. Use search terms like-
“republished from”
“syndicated from”
“Originally published on”

Focusing on Tier Two and Three Syndication
Many stop at tier-one syndication. However, tier two (social media) and tier three (influencers) are valuable tools you can’t miss. Use them as best as possible.
Share your content across social media platforms and make partnerships with many influencers.
Networking with Individuals or Industries within Your Niche
The point of content syndication is the republishing of your content on another site of similar or larger authority. Hence, you will almost always have to do the approach to syndicate your content.
Experts will advise you to create networking with many individuals and websites within your niche before going for any syndicating request.
Create a partnership, collaborate, and build trust. Afterward, propose to syndicate your content. It is the same process as guest blogging networking.
On-Site Aspects
On-site aspects include the creation and optimization of the potential syndication content and adding internal links.
Rework the Content as Necessary
The content on your site may not always be suitable for the new audience it will receive on the offsite platform. In that case, modifying it here and there may work wonders.
Also, ensure you add a call to action (CTA) in your content to attract the audience to your site.
Making Quality Content
Syndicating can become a successful technique because of quality content. It goes without saying that a site won’t want to feature a poorly written post.
Moreover, quality content will also boost your on-site SEO. It naturally promotes Google to rank you higher at SERP, making way for higher traffic and visibility. It is what syndicators look for.
Reverse Syndication
Reverse syndication is when you republish your guest blog from another site to your own site. In this case, you need to ask their permission to syndicate the content on your site.
When requesting them, you can promise them to add a link to their site to the syndicated post. Don’t forget to add the source part and link to the original guest blog.
Moreover, you must add a canonical tag on the guest post to signal Google bots that the guest blog is the original piece and the one on your site is syndicated.
While content syndication is a valuable method in scaling your backlink, there are other methods to try. Guest blogging, repurposing, and splintering don’t have many risks like syndication.
Splintering refers to dividing your content into many parts to distribute on various social media platforms or sites. It is like a mixture of repurposing and syndicating.
Before you splinter or syndicate your content, wait for a while for Google crawlers to index your site first. Syndicate it after that.
It reduces the chances of the syndicated content page ranking higher than your original content page.