Publishing content is a surefire way to attract and retain site visitors while building credibility and brand power, but only if your content is being posted where readers will see it. In the past, this simply meant posting content to your website or sending out a newsletter, but today, with advances in things like social media, content publishers are having to change the way they do things in order to be noticed. In fact, one of the latest potential stumbling blocks for publishers comes in the form of content aggregation sites and mobile apps.

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What is an Aggregation Site?

An aggregation site is a place where content from around the web is brought together for fast and easy browsing. Essentially, these sites or apps pull together relevant content so that readers can browse through headlines or snippets of content to decide if they want to click through and visit the publisher. Being picked up by a popular news aggregation site can make a huge difference in the amount of traffic a publisher sees, so it’s very important to get the attention of popular aggregators in order to have your site’s content picked up and aggregated often.

Optimizing Content for Aggregators

The key to being picked up by an aggregator is to make sure your content is optimized. Some ways to do this are to write catchy headlines that offer relevant information about the content contained within the story. Additionally, you’ll want the first paragraph, and more specifically, the first sentence of the first paragraph, to have some type of hook that will compel readers to click through to the story if a snippet is shown. The thing to remember is that, even if your content is picked up by an aggregation site or app, it isn’t going to do you any good or generate any additional revenue unless a visitor clicks through to your site.

Of course, you’ll also want to follow proper and accepted HTML formatting rules to ensure that your site and content can be found by aggregators through search engines. Additionally, it’s a good idea to offer a subscribe or follow button on your site that allows an aggregation site administrator the ability to easily keep up with the latest content you publish.

Social News Aggregation

You should also consider the importance of your social content when publishing. While there are traditional news aggregators that pull stories from websites, there are also social news aggregators that pull stories from social media sites. As a result, be mindful of this when publishing updates on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. The value in this is that if your content and profiles get placed in front of a large audience, you’re more likely to attract followers who can then become revenue once they have connected with you through your various social media profiles. From there, you are able to bypass the value of aggregation and reach out directly with offers.