Syndication is a mutually beneficial arrangement that enables broker affiliates to republish their content on third-party sites. You may already be familiar with the word syndication from the old-style news networks. A journalist or agency would get a scoop, and the story would be syndicated across dozens or hundreds of news networks. It was how information went viral before the internet and social media.

Syndication for broker affiliates follows the same principle. Your content gets widespread exposure across a range of sites. The sites that publish your material benefit by receiving free content. Successful syndication is a force multiplier that can build your online profile as an affiliate and generate high volume, high-quality traffic.

Syndication can give you widespread reach and massive online exposure. Properly managed, it’s a direct shortcut to higher broker affiliate commissions and profits.

As with all marketing strategies, syndication is not a magic solution. There are potential pitfalls, and you need to calculate the possible impact of duplicate content on your broader SEO strategy and Google rankings.

You also must ensure that your syndicated content either contains your broker affiliate links or drives traffic your way. You’re not offering free content as a courtesy service to other sites. You are building your brand, and your goal is to make money by bringing traders to brokers like AvaTrade.

If you understand syndication – and SEO – you can potentially transform the performance of your content. Read on for a complete guide to syndication for online broker and forex affiliates.

The benefits of content syndication for broker affiliates
How to build your syndicate network
How to protect your Google rankings when you syndicate content

The Benefits of Content Syndication

You are making an investment when you produce affiliate content – whether for forex, cryptos, stocks or other assets. Either you are paying a professional financial content writer to create articles and blog posts, or you are investing time and energy in doing your research and writing. You expect a clear return on that investment in search engine rankings, traffic, leads and conversions.

Effective syndication will boost your ROI on all content that you generate. Your forex blog might get a few dozen readers every month – even though you publish top-quality, SEO-optimizedblog posts with great content. If identical blog posts are republished on various bigger and more popular websites, your readership will grow exponentially.

Guest Posts vs Syndicated Posts

Most broker affiliates who invest in SEO content know the need to publish guest posts. There is some confusion about the difference between guest posts and syndicated posts, so we’ll start by defining them clearly.

A guest post is an article or blog post you provide to a third-party site for publication. Guest posts are usually written in your name and ideally contain a short bio and good-quality backlinks or affiliate links. Most guest posts contain original content that is potentially interesting to the site users. You gain wider public exposure (and backlinks from a quality site that may improve your search engine rankings).

A syndicated post is a post you have already published on your sites. It is reproduced in full, or with minor editorial changes, on various third-party sites. The original content is duplicated. A syndicated post can be replicated as often as you want, but you must negotiate with your syndicate partners about how the post is published on their sites.

It would help if you were clear about attributability, links, and whether your syndication partners will use a rel=canonical tag or NoIndex tag for the page with your republished content. This will reduce the SEO hazards that can occur when content is duplicated.

Tags for Syndicated Content

A rel=canonical tag tells Google where your original content is posted. It also allows you to benefit directly from any links generated by syndicated content. A rel=canonical tag is a significant advantage when you syndicate content. It would be best if you always pushed the content host to use rel=canonical tags.

A NoIndex tag is sometimes a convenient compromise if you can’t stipulate a rel=canonical tag. A NoIndex tag instructs Google not to index the page with the republished post. If the Google bot respects the tag (it might not), your republished content won’t outrank the original post.

How to Syndicate Content as a Broker Affiliate?

It would help if you worked systematically to build a syndicated network as a broker affiliate. The more initial thought and planning you put into your syndication strategy, the higher your ROI will be.

Create top-quality content
Identify the right syndicate partners
Pitch your initial approach correctly

Create Top Quality Affiliate Content

The internet is flooded with poor-quality content. High-earning broker affiliates invest in top-quality content because they know it generates strong SERPs and converts traffic. If you want to join the top-tier affiliate brokers who earn six-figure commissions, you need to master the art of creating compelling content. Your articles must be well written, engaging, relevant, easy to read and optimized for SEO. Google currently pays close attention to site content quality when it assigns rankings.

When you approach potential syndication partners, they cast a critical eye over your existing content. High-value sites will not jeopardize their own SERPs and branding with low-quality content. It’s worth starting by submitting guest posts to various third-party sites. If you’re willing to accept criticism, you can gain valuable experience and take your content to a new level. If you’re already widely published as a guest poster, you’ll be in a stronger position when you make pitches for syndication.

How to Identify Syndicate Partners?

If you want to make money as a broker affiliate, you should break out of the closed world of forex and crypto-related sites. There is an abundance of sites that aren’t directly connected to online trading, financial services and investment but do attract site users who are potential online traders. For example, if you are promoting cryptos and forex, your major target demographic is young men with disposable income and a willingness to take financial risks in pursuit of fast profits. Look for unrelated blogs and sites that appeal to this demographic.

When creating a list of potential syndicate partners, check whether their published posts have an attribution message, author bio, or links. The attribution message could be as simple as “…the following post, syndicated from the forex broker affiliate site…”.

You can simplify the process with Google searches. Type site names into Google with phrases “originally published on” or “syndicated from”. Intelligent use of search engines can generate an extensive list of potential syndication partners.

Top 3 Syndicate Resources for Broker Affiliates

In addition to using search engines, the top 3 syndicate resources for broker affiliates are also worth trying out. They are the intelligent, 21st-century marketing equivalent of old-fashioned wire services.

Outbrain
Outbrain is probably the best-known syndication tool. It can place your links on high-value sites and help you to promote blog posts and a wide range of other content.
Zemanta
Zemanta maintains a massive network of online publishers. Zemanta allows you to choose how they promote your content. They will index and optimize your posts before publishing them
Taboola
Taboola is a favorite with many broker affiliates. It effectively syndicates a wide variety of content across a network of publishers, hosts and sites. Taboola offers an excellent all-around service that is easy to use.

Pitch your Initial Syndication Approach

Good quality blogs and sites that depend on free content make it easy to contact editors or content managers. Although they welcome approaches from content creators and other potential contributors, creating an effective pitch is still vitally important.

Keep your pitch short and use a readable format
Introduce yourself clearly and provide links to your best guest posts
Be clear about the volume/frequency of content that you can provide
Explain briefly what you like about the host site and why syndication will benefit the host.

Your pitch needs to resonate with whoever reads it immediately. It must catch their attention with the first short paragraph and give them an instant overview of who you are, what you offer, and how they will benefit. It must be sufficiently compelling to persuade a busy stranger to click on your links and read your sample posts. If your content is good enough and relevant, they will probably get back to you quickly.

Negotiate Syndication as a Broker Affiliate

If you’re confident that you have top-quality affiliate content and that your host will benefit from republishing your articles, you can afford to be assertive when you negotiate syndication. Although there is usually no payment, this is very much a business deal. Your syndication partners are receiving a free product; you need to receive site traffic in return.

Always insist on full attribution and a rel=canonical tag for your republished posts. Offer to provide a short bio, a photo, and links. At the very least, you should hold out for NoIndex tagging for the posts and an “originally published on” or “syndicated from” attribution. If a potential syndicate partner doesn’t want to honor your requests for attribution, walk away from the deal. The internet is full of blogs and sites that know the actual value of high-quality SEO-optimized content.

A successful content syndication strategy is a crucial marketing tool that can put you ahead of your competitors. If you approach it correctly, the ROI is substantial and can rapidly boost your income as a broker affiliate.