The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Note: Amanda Milligan collaborated with Stacker’s SEO specialist, Sam Kaye, to create this case study.
When a marketer is asked about the value of content syndication[1], they’ll typically list two main benefits:
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Increased brand awareness, as you’re reaching a wider audience.
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Improved engagement, as people can share and comment across multiple versions of the story.
But one benefit of content syndication that marketers frequently overlook is the potential to improve a site’s SEO performance.
While paid syndication (like press release distribution) can’t carry SEO value, developing strong content that’s appealing to publishers and their readers can generate massive amounts of link authority back to a publishing domain, and drive significant organic growth.
But it’s difficult to test and implement a comprehensive syndication strategy, so there aren’t many resources about its SEO impact.
In this case study, we:
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Outline the processes used by Stacker to syndicate content.
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Look into organic results on Stacker.com as a result of content syndication efforts.
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Discuss how content syndication can be used as part of a long-term organic growth strategy.
The content creation and distribution methods used for Stacker.com are the same as those used for Stacker Studio[2] brand partners, making Stacker.com’s organic success an excellent case study for the long-term effectiveness for content syndication strategies.
The evidence of syndication’s impact
Before digging into how syndication works for SEO, let’s begin by proving that content syndication works.
Stacker.com has no proactive digital PR or backlinking strategies. Our growth strategy has been utilizing content syndication as a model to reach new audiences and drive valuable domain authority. The result has been Stacker accumulating