Content Distribution Guide: What It Is & How to Do It

You whitethorn person heard the expression, “The champion contented doesn’t win; organisation does.”

This is wherefore simply creating large contented isn’t enough. You request a organisation strategy to marque definite your contented really reaches its intended audience. Otherwise, you’ll conscionable beryllium wasting your clip and money.

In this guide, you’ll larn what contented organisation is and however to make and motorboat a winning contented organisation strategy:

• What is contented distribution?
• Types of contented organisation channels
• Create a winning contented organisation strategy

Content organisation is the process of publishing and promoting contented successful assorted formats crossed aggregate channels to scope arsenic galore radical arsenic possible.

The superior organisation channels are owned, earned, and paid channels.

Owned channels

An owned transmission is 1 that you afloat control.

Examples of earned channels include:

• Website or blog
• Email list
• Twitter
• TikTok
• YouTube

Website or blog

Your website is the superior transmission you own.

Ahrefs customers usage the SEO tools on our website, but we besides people and administer contented here.

There are 5 main types of contented connected our website.

• Guides – Resources to assistance customers get much integrated postulation to their websites
• Data studies – Unique insights and statistic astir our industry
• Product information – Updates astir caller merchandise features
• Free SEO tools – Interactive tools to fto imaginable customers illustration our paid service
• Visual content – Charts, images, and infographics to assistance explicate analyzable topics

Email list

A subscribe container is located connected the apical navigation barroom and the sidebar of galore articles connected our website.

When a scholar provides their email address, we offer, successful exchange, a play newsletter wherever we stock invaluable SEO and selling resources and merchandise updates.

For example, December’s email newsletter featured our caller Traffic Potential metric and a roundup video and blog station of merchandise updates.

Twitter

Ahrefs has 93K followers connected Twitter, and we administer a assortment of contented there.

We people nonfiction summaries and nexus backmost to the articles connected our website.

We besides people tweet threads. Each thread is simply a bid of connected tweets akin to a step-by-step guide.

TikTok

You’ve apt heard of Miss Excel, who publishes Excel tips connected TikTok.

She regularly earns implicit 100K plays per TikTok post.

YouTube

YouTube is simply a transmission wherever we administer video contented to viewers and our subscribers.

In summation to tutorials connected utilizing our tools, we people lawsuit studies and experiments we anticipation resonate with our audience.

Notably, galore of our videos are repurposed from existing articles.

Earned channels

An earned transmission is wherever your contented gets featured due to the fact that it’s bully capable to beryllium approved by an editor, gatekeeper, oregon moderator.

Examples of earned channels include:

• Reddit
• Facebook groups
• Forums
• Guest posts

Paid channels

A paid transmission requires outgo to administer content.

At Ahrefs, we sometimes put successful paid channels to administer our contented truthful we tin scope arsenic galore applicable radical arsenic possible.

Examples of paid channels include:

• Twitter Ads
• Google Ads
• Quuu Promote
• Sponsorships
• Retargeting
• Native advertising, e.g., Taboola and Outbrain

With truthful galore channels disposable to administer contented these days, knowing wherever to commencement tin beryllium a spot overwhelming. So let’s look astatine however to make a simple, winning contented organisation strategy measurement by step.

Step 1. Publish contented connected your superior owned channel

Every concern should commencement by choosing an owned transmission to absorption on, and past determine what contented to post there.

And 9 retired of 10 times, this volition usually be:

• Website/blog
• YouTube
• A societal media relationship (Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, etc)

The champion transmission for you volition beryllium connected the benignant of contented you already nutrient and whether you person the expertise to make much contented for that channel.

For example, if you’re camera shy, past YouTube astir apt isn’t the champion choice. You’ll privation to instrumentality to penning and publishing connected your website oregon blog instead.

Our superior transmission is our website/blog, truthful this is wherever we archetypal administer astir of our content.

PRO TIP

If you’re distributing contented via your website oregon blog and privation radical to find you, it pays to optimize the contented for SEO. If you tin fertile connected Google for your keywords, your contented volition get a batch of integrated postulation every month.

For example, our usher to Google hunt operators ranks successful the apical 100 for implicit 2K keywords and gets an estimated 8.8K monthly visits from integrated search, according to Ahrefs.

Looking astatine the integrated postulation past chart, we tin spot that postulation has fluctuated implicit time, but the nonfiction has been getting thousands of integrated visits each period since December 2018.

In different words, optimizing this station for SEO resulted successful hundreds of thousands of readers. And we did truthful by publishing and distributing connected conscionable 1 channel.

Recommended reading: How to Write SEO Content That Ranks

Step 2. Push to email and societal media

Next, you request to get your contented retired determination by distributing it to your secondary owned channels: your societal media channels and email list.

The intent of distributing to these channels is twofold:

1. You tin stock cardinal insights and messages from your contented straight with your followers and subscribers.
2. You tin thrust postulation backmost to wherever your main contented lives.

For example, we propulsion each caller blog posts to our 93K Twitter followers:

Our 98K Facebook followers:

Our 87K LinkedIn followers:

And our ~170K newsletter subscribers:

The organisation channels volition vary, depending connected who you people and wherever they bent retired online.

Our channels are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and email due to the fact that they marque consciousness for us. We don’t administer contented to Instagram, Snapchat, oregon TikTok due to the fact that they are not wherever our assemblage chiefly lives.

Step 3. Push to earned channels

It’s a small harder to administer connected earned channels due to the fact that your contented needs to beryllium approved by a gatekeeper. Here are a fewer examples wherever we (Ahrefs) pushed contented to earned channels.

Reddit

When our main selling officer, Tim Soulo, distributed his keyword probe guide, helium created a short, simplified mentation of the station for /r/bigSEO.

If this didn’t see invaluable accusation for the subreddit, the moderators would person ne'er approved it—hence wherefore Reddit is an earned channel.

The aforesaid is existent for channels similar third-party Facebook groups.

Facebook groups

Before joining Ahrefs, our caput of content, Joshua Hardwick, created a video that helium wanted to administer to the SEO community. So helium showed his video to the owners of third-party SEO Facebook groups and asked for support to station successful their groups.

As the contented was valuable, galore owners happily fto him station the video.

Other earned channels you tin propulsion to see the following:

• Forums (e.g., Quora)
• Third-party newsletters
• Other blogs (via guest posts)

Guest blogging

Guest blogging is wherever you constitute a station for different blog successful your industry. It’s a large mode to further administer contented and ideas, particularly if you tin get published connected a tract with a ample audience.

To find applicable sites to transportation your impermanent station to, look for those that person already published articles astir akin topics.

For example, if we wanted further organisation for the ideas shared successful our keyword probe guide, we could look for websites that published articles astir nexus gathering due to the fact that they’re apt to beryllium funny successful a station astir a akin subject.

Here’s however to bash this successful Ahrefs’ Content Explorer:

1. Enter a related taxable (e.g., nexus building)
2. Change the dropdown to In title
3. Filter for lone 1 leafage per domain (no constituent pitching to the aforesaid site twice)
4. Go to the Websites tab

Recommended reading: Guide to Guest Blogging for SEO

Step 4. Push to paid channels

When distributing contented to owned and earned channels isn’t cutting it for you, it’s clip to measurement it up with paid channels.

Quuu Promote

One of the cheapest and easiest paid channels to usage is called Quuu Promote.

For $50 a month, you tin propulsion up to 10 blog posts to implicit 39K radical who volition stock the posts with their societal followers (if they similar the content).

Twitter Ads

Twitter Ads tin beryllium a cost-effective mode to administer content. You tin larn much astir our experiments with the ads successful this video.

Google Ads

Google Ads look supra integrated hunt results connected the SERP. This is simply a large mode to scope radical who are really searching for your content.

For example, we precocious distributed our escaped SEO tools via Google Ads:

TIP

Find perchance lucrative keywords to people with paid ads by spying connected the keywords your competitors are moving ads for. To bash this, plug a rival into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and spell to the Paid keywords report.

Sponsorships

We precocious decided to determination our paid postulation budget, utilizing it to sponsor influencers and thought leaders successful our industry.

We’ll beryllium reallocating our paid postulation fund (~$200k💰) for December distant from the Google/Facebook—and into sponsoring the industry’s champion creators and thought leaders.

Learn much astir our results successful this thread:

Native advertising

Native ads are advertisements that look similar regular contented and look connected fashionable websites, e.g., USA Today, AOL, MSN, Weather.com, etc.

Taboola and Outbrain are fashionable marketplaces for autochthonal ads.

This coffee company converted 10K caller customers successful six months utilizing autochthonal ads.

Facebook ads

Facebook allows you to boost your posts to much users connected its platform. To bash this, click the large “Boost post” fastener connected the station you privation to promote.

Step 5. Measure your results with tools

The intent of contented organisation is to scope much people, truthful it’s important to measurement show to spot however efficaciously you managed to bash that. Below are a fewer tools that can help.

Ahrefs

If you published contented connected your website oregon blog and optimized it for integrated search, it should hopefully commencement ranking for applicable keywords connected Google over time.

To cheque if this is the case, make a escaped Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account and plug the URL of the contented you distributed into Site Explorer. The instrumentality volition amusement the fig of keywords and estimated fig of monthly integrated visits the leafage receives.

For example, our nexus gathering guide ranks successful the apical 100 for 365 keywords and gets an estimated 1.3K integrated visits per month:

Twitter

Twitter has built-in analytics. Just click the graph icon connected immoderate station to spot its reach.

For example, Joshua’s caller thread astir keyword cannibalization received 275K impressions and 1.4K engagements.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics gives you each kinds of invaluable insights astir your contented organisation efforts, including wherever visitors came from, however agelong they stayed, and whether the organisation transmission helped lend to a conversion.

Recommended reading: The Only 3 Google Analytics Metrics You Need to Track

Step 6. Repeat

And the past measurement is to repetition the erstwhile six steps.

You tin repetition the supra either for repurposed contented oregon different portion of content.

For example, we published this survey astir Core Web Vitals. Our precise ain Patrick Stox past created a thread connected Twitter and added the cardinal graphics from the survey to each tweet.

Final thoughts

The intent of this nonfiction is to stock cardinal contented organisation channels and insights into however to make a winning contented organisation strategy that reaches a wider audience.

The prime of platforms you usage erstwhile distributing contented and measuring it is wholly up to you.

If you’re creating contented and don’t judge it’s being rewarded, retrieve this: “The champion contented doesn’t win; organisation does.”