As you probably know, content is one of the most important components to effectively marketing your law firm online. However, merely "writing great content" and hoping to gain visibility within search engines, is not a complete web marketing campaign. The other half of the equation is getting your content in front of an audience that is ready, willing, and able to link to it and further publicize it. This is where content syndication can come into play.
To me, content syndication is just another way to distribute your best content across the web. Why would you want to do this? Well there are a host of benefits from effective content syndication. Distributing your content on different sites will attract new visitors from those sites and increase the number of links back to your website (a critical component to gaining more visibility within search engines).
While there are many factors that go into deciding where and how to distribute or syndicate your website and/or blog content, there are two that strike me as more important than the others: Location and Uniqueness.
When we talk about location, we are referring to the deciding where you should distribute your content. As a rule of thumb, you want to distribute your content to relevant websites that have authority. For example, if you are distributing content on criminal legal matters, you will want to find other websites that publish content on that subject that have authority. In terms of authority, you should identify other sites that "rank well" for relevant search phrases and have a good quantity of quality back links.
Next, we need to think about uniqueness. You may be tempted to automate your content syndication. The problem with automated syndication techniques is that you may create duplicate content across the web. Search engines (and users) don't like that. Therefore, I generally recommend against automated content distribution unless you can implement a dynamic page template or vary your content from site to site. There are also software solutions that can help you vary your content. However, be extremely careful about using such software. Always maintain the quality of any content that you publish online.
If you're looking for places to syndicate your legal content, we have recommended JD Supra & LawFirms.com to many law firms.
Sometimes using additional topically specific sites to syndicate your content can make sense. Here is a quick example:
This DC Medical Malpractice Blog syndicates content on a variety of more specific dc medical malpractice law malpractice patient advocacy and birth injury law domains.
Again, implementing content syndication should never be done at the sacrifice of your professional reputation. Stay away from any strategies that cast your firm in what you deem to be a negative light.
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