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You know that creating and consistently putting out great content is truly a differentiator for your practice. As a financial advisor, the more valuable content you’re sharing with your audience, the better – for them as an educational tool, and for you as a brand- and lead-building engine.

But as you are building your content program and potentially sourcing content from third parties (like Advisor I/O) – what do you need to know?

We cover it all – so you can create and share with confidence.

First up, What is Content Syndication?

Content syndication means legally publishing someone else’s content, typically in exchange for a fee. The word “licensed” is generally used interchangeably with “syndicated” – with syndicated content being the trendy buzzword in today’s world.

For example, the NYT creates original content which can be licensed – and they have a procedure and a way to do that. On the opposite side, many blogs are aggregators – they pull original content, and curate it for a specific audience. The lifestyle blog Ruelala is a good example. At the end of each article on the blog, there’s a disclaimer listing the author and the licensing information.

There are several ways to syndicate content, including taking the piece word for word, linking to the original piece via a promotion, or adjusting the piece for your audience.

How Does Syndicated Content Help Your Brand?

There are numerous benefits to syndicated content, but the three top reasons to mix in syndicated content are:

1. It brings credibility to your website
2. It helps you scale content marketing
3. It fills topic or coverage gaps

Does Syndicated Content Replace Original Content?

The short answer is no. The long answer is: It depends.

We’re a big proponent of mixing your own original articles, videos, etc. with content like ours. And it’s a major part of the program that every Adviosr I/O member goes through when they partner with us.

Generally, our view is that your site should at the very least include 70% original content – this includes pages such as your home page, about us, services, and more.

As a part of our program, we help you not only get to a place where you can produce your own pieces in minimal time, but you can customize our pieces with minimal effort.

Does Google Penalize Sites for Syndicated Content?

Syndicated content is also sometimes referenced as “duplicate content.” And it’s a myth that duplicate content can cause SEO penalties. Google themselves have stated this multiple times.

According to Google, “Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.” Usually, this includes keyword stuffing or posting the same piece multiple times on your domain to try and game the system.

In any advisor’s case, you’re not trying to manipulate anything; you’re just trying to get more eyes on your brand by tapping into new content. Google understands that content across the internet has duplicates, especially with the amount of content available. But at the end of the day, all advisors have different domains, for different geographic reasons, with different needs – so there’s no reason to be worried.

When in Doubt, Customize! 

If you’re in doubt of duplicate content, customize it (assuming you have the permission from the platform syndicating it – which at Advisor I/O, you do!).

Neil Patel put it best: If the original was a “how to” post, hold it up to a mirror and write the “how not to” post. Base it on the same concept and research but use different examples and add more value. This “evil twin” post will be similar, but still original.

Tailoring it to fit your firms’ niche, location, and services can differentiate it and allow you to generate more SEO juice for the piece you’re posting.

Syndicating Content From Advisor I/O

When it comes to our platform, we create content fresh weekly, and our members syndicate new content all the time. They can syndicate the piece directly from our platform or for their own blog via a download. We’ve created the platform so that each piece is a fully customizable document, and we’ve created super easy trainings to help our members quickly customize pieces for their niche, demographic, business specifics, etc.

We share some additional guidelines here on how you can customize pieces for your own blog.

Our members choose to customize or use a piece as is, we follow industry best practices to ensure it stays in line with Google’s protocols by providing a link back to our site.

Our members also have the options of sharing a custom link of the piece.

The Bottom Line

Syndicated content can be a big help to your marketing program, from both an organic content standpoint, as well as your ability to use it in paid media. Partnering with the right platform to help you generate the right topics and show you how to use them appropriately in your marketing can help reach more people and engage more investors.