You work hard to regularly create great online content. You want your content to be seen and read by your target audience. So how do you get more people--or, at least, the right people--to see your creations?
The first answer to that question, of course, is search engine optimization. Garnering search traffic is one of the core functions of content marketing.
However, one of the trends in content marketing today is an increased emphasis on sharing, rather than searching. By sharing content in places where your target audience is already looking, you don't have to wait for them to search for it (and wait for your content to rank highly with the search engines). And since your shared content produces links back to your own site, it can similarly help your SEO efforts.
Straight from the Source
The process of strategically sharing your content online is sometimes referred to as content sourcing. It is about you being a source of content for others.
Guest blogging is one well-known way to go about content sourcing. But you can also provide content to social media groups, industry magazines, email newsletters and various other channels.
Sourcing Strategies
The first step in content sourcing is to identify all of the channels on which you would like your content to appear.
To build this list, you need to consider where your target audience is most likely to see it. What industry sites do they frequent? What LinkedIn groups, Google+ communities, YouTube channels and other social media gathering places do they hang out in? What blogs do they read? What email lists do they subscribe to?
You then have to determine whether you can get content published in those places. Some will be quite simple; on social media or Q & A sites, you can usually publish the content yourself. Others will require you to pitch your services to an editor. Note that some publications will be looking for regular contributors, so a single pitch might get you a regular, recurring platform.
Once you have a platform, you will need to create the web content to share on it. Each piece of content will usually need to be unique, since search engines (and editors) frown on duplicate content. Because of the effort involved, you should consider the potential benefit of each channel; some may not be worth your time.
Whatever the channel, it is important that you create quality content. The quality of the content reflects directly on you, and provides evidence to the audience that you and your company are worth (or not worth) a further look. Quality content, with the correct authorship markup, can positively influence your AuthorRank and increase the weight that Google gives you in search rankings. And you also want to optimize your content with keywords and links back to your own site. By doing so, content sourcing can become an important link building tool for your business.
Content sourcing does require an investment of time and effort. But if you are looking to build awareness of your company, improve off-page SEOor develop new sources of traffic and leads, content sourcing can be an invaluable tool.
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
