How Stacker.com Earned 1M+ Natural Month-to-month Visits By way of Content material Syndication [Case Study]

When a marketer is requested in regards to the worth of content material syndication, they’ll usually checklist two major advantages:

1. Elevated model consciousness, as you’re reaching a wider viewers.

2. Improved engagement, as individuals can share and remark throughout a number of variations of the story.

However one good thing about content material syndication that entrepreneurs continuously overlook is the potential to enhance a web site’s search engine marketing efficiency.

Whereas paid syndication (like press launch distribution) can’t carry search engine marketing worth, growing robust content material that’s interesting to publishers and their readers can generate huge quantities of hyperlink authority again to a publishing area, and drive important natural development.

Nevertheless it’s troublesome to check and implement a complete syndication technique, so there aren’t many sources about its search engine marketing influence.

On this case research, we:

• Define the processes utilized by Stacker to syndicate content material.

• Look into natural outcomes on Stacker.com because of content material syndication efforts.

• Talk about how content material syndication can be utilized as a part of a long-term natural development technique.

The content material creation and distribution strategies used for Stacker.com are the identical as these used for Stacker Studio model companions, making Stacker.com’s natural success a wonderful case research for the long-term effectiveness for content material syndication methods.

The proof of syndication’s influence

Earlier than digging into how syndication works for search engine marketing, let’s start by proving that content material syndication works.

Stacker.com has no proactive digital PR or backlinking methods. Our development technique has been using content material syndication as a mannequin to succeed in new audiences and drive precious area authority. The consequence has been Stacker accumulating 20K “dofollowed” referring domains and over a million distinctive backlinks during the last 4 years.

Natural visitors development

Natural visitors: Google Search Console

Over a interval of 16 months, Stacker.com noticed a big acceleration in natural development, rising by roughly 500% — from fewer than 10K natural entries per day to greater than 50K entries per day. (Our web site was TheStacker.com, and you may see the exponential development on that area as nicely earlier than migrating to Stacker.com.)

Backlinks

Backlinks: Google Search Console

Backlinks that seem on pages together with rel=canonical tags are processed and valued by search engines like google and yahoo, as evidenced by the 8M+ hyperlinks created by this methodology & recognized in Search Console. The vast majority of these hyperlinks are in-text dofollows from syndicated article pickups with rel=canonical tags. This is a wonderful indicator that Google is crawling and valuing these hyperlinks.

Backlinks: Moz Professional (domain-wide)

Backlinks created by way of content material syndication are additionally being picked up by Moz Professional and different third-party reporting instruments.

Moz Professional stories a gentle development within the variety of referring domains that correlates nicely with GSC hyperlink reporting metrics:

Moz: particular person hyperlinks

Along with monitoring account-wide backlinking development, Moz additionally picks up particular person cases of hyperlinks created by way of content material syndication, corresponding to these syndicated SFGate pickups.

Area Authority: Moz Professional

This accumulation of hyperlink authority over time has allowed Stacker to extend our Moz Professional Area Authority rating from 56 to 59 over the previous 12 months:

Natural efficiency: Abstract

In 2021 alone, Stacker.com noticed a 500% improve in referring domains, a 380% improve in natural visitors, and an enchancment in area authority from 56 to 59 due largely to our content material syndication efforts.

These long-term developments of natural development, paired with the truth that syndicated hyperlinks are being picked up by each Google Search Console and Moz Professional, are a transparent indication that content material syndication is an efficient technique to drive natural visitors.

How content material syndication improves search engine marketing authority

Stacker’s syndication method offers hyperlink authority in two methods: in-text dofollow backlinks and rel=canonical tags.

An in-text backlink acts as a sign of supply attribution, telling search engines like google and yahoo {that a} specific piece of information or content material has been taken from one other supply. A canonical tag does the identical factor, besides that it attributes the complete article, not only a piece of it, again to the unique writer. Each are indicators of supply attribution, and each point out {that a} writer trusts your content material sufficient to characteristic and share the article on their web site.

When a chunk of Stacker content material is syndicated (re-published in its authentic kind on one other writer’s web site), the syndicated model features a rel=canonical tag again to the publishers’ hosted model, in addition to an in-text dofollow backlink within the content material intro:

When a Stacker article is rewritten as an alternative of syndicated, (e.g., a writer creates a locally-focused variant utilizing Stacker supply knowledge), we request a backlink citing us as the unique supplier of the research.

Owned syndication vs. earned syndication

In the identical manner the trade talks about owned and earned media, you’ll be able to consider two sorts of syndication as “owned syndication” and “earned syndication.”

Owned syndication includes reposting an article on a number of platforms by you. An instance of this could be publishing an article in your weblog after which republishing it on Medium, LinkedIn, and different accounts you run. Whereas this would possibly improve the variety of folks that see your article, the probability of driving natural visitors from these methods reliably or at scale is just about nil.

Earned syndication includes the approval from one other writer that your content material is effective to their viewers, so this kind of syndication is more durable to realize. Nonetheless, along with reaching a wider viewers than with owned syndication, you get the authority sign of getting your content material hosted on one other writer’s area. (Somebody determined your content material was price republishing in full, and what’s a better signal of belief than that?)

Why isn’t everybody doing this?

As a result of it’s not straightforward. For the primary few years of our existence, Stacker did nothing however construct writer relationships and grasp the artwork of newsworthy content material. Getting content material pickups at scale requires constructing belief with massive information publishers, in addition to a big quantity of content material information publishers discover uniquely attention-grabbing and related. Content material syndication is constructed upon a basis of content material high quality, writer belief, and the technical functionality to share content material at scale, and these three parts can take years to develop.

Stacker journalists are dedicated to understanding the protection wants of native information organizations and investing in tales that may drive significant worth for his or her audiences. After 5 years of working with publishing companions, we’ve studied the information on pickups and viewers attain to uncover insights into what tales may be most helpful.

We landed on some key earned syndication tenets:

Contextualization is vital

Any kind of writer you come throughout can have their core editorial calendar established with key subjects they know their viewers cares about. They’re not in search of outsiders to contribute to the center of their publication, so don’t method it that manner. As a substitute, discover subjects they usually cowl and even perhaps specific tales they’ve run and ask your self: What different perspective can I add to this story to contextualize it? Maybe a historic angle or different comparability

Information at all times helps

Some publishers don’t have entry to knowledge analysts, or in the event that they do, they’re engaged on a ton of different initiatives and it’s laborious to scale data-focused content material. For those who’re in a position to present tales primarily based on knowledge that’s been distilled and introduced with clear insights, many publishers would recognize that. Moreover, simply realizing your content material is backed by knowledge relatively than opinion makes it simpler to vet (and belief).

Assist publishers attain their objectives

Our direct line of communication with a number of publishers, each native and nationwide, has led to fascinating conversations round their objectives. To sum it up, each writer has distinctive focus areas in the case of viewers acquisition and engagement. Some are targeted on changing customers to subscription whereas others are targeted on pageviews or time on web site. Discover their web site, see how they monetize, and think about how your content material can assist them meet these objectives.

Let’s have a look at an instance story Stacker created.

This piece makes use of Main League Baseball knowledge to find out probably the most profitable postseason groups. With knowledge being the premise for the rating, publishers don’t have to fret in regards to the validity of the order, which is a serious benefit in vetting.

This story affords authentic evaluation in a manner that may complement the native protection of stories organizations. Whereas a sports activities beat author would possibly concentrate on the realm staff’s historical past, present staff efficiency, or different native and newsy facets of the story—this story affords contextual knowledge evaluation that may work for quite a lot of information organizations to enhance their boots-on-the-ground reporting.

All in all, the article earned greater than 300 writer pickups and greater than 100,000 story impressions. That’s an unbelievable quantity of payoff for one piece of content material, and earned syndication is the car that made it doable.

The syndication takeaway

Like so many different search engine marketing ways, not all syndication is created equal. Potential shoppers have usually requested me how Stacker is totally different from providers like press launch distribution platforms, with which they didn’t see search engine marketing outcomes.

Properly, when you will have sponsored or nofollow hyperlinks, it’s by no means going to be the identical as earned syndication. Getting white hat content material pickups with consistency is troublesome — it requires each top-tier content material and the eye of journalists.

So my recommendation? Think about whether or not there are high-authority publications in your area of interest. Examine what they publish and ask your self:

• Do you already publish content material that they’d love?

• Are you able to make some tweaks to already current content material to higher match their editorial model?

• Are you able to create authentic analysis/stories that will curiosity their viewers?

• Would getting model consciousness with their viewers assist us enhance your model attain?

If the reply is sure to not less than two of those questions, think about content material syndication as a method.