Developing a syndicated network

Getting my articles out there

[universetoday]

I've got a pretty popular news website in my category, and I was thinking of making my news articles available to a wider group of newspapers, websites, etc.

My main goal from this is to generate traffic back to my main website, so I'd want a byline, and website credit from whoever publishes it. I probably wouldn't bother trying to make this a source of income; although, it could spin off into freelance writing gigs.

I'd essentially be competing against Reuters, AP, etc, but providing free articles in my specific category.

Any tips, suggestions, or pitfalls to avoid when embarking on this? I'm thinking I'd just start contacting editors and pitching them on the service. I've got some reputation and crediblity, so it probably won't be a total cold call.

[rogerd]

That's a great idea, Universetoday. In addition to your proactive cold-calling, be sure you have information on the site and preferably visible near each article. Your best leads may come from unexpected visitors.

Another idea: consider customizing the articles for different sites. This doesn't have to be a complete rewrite, but perhaps a few tweaks to the title, intro, conclusion, etc. will make the article more relevant to the other site's audience. This will avoid looking like duplicate content, and increase the value of the content for the other site. OTOH, if your stuff is straight news, perhaps that's not feasible.

[lucertola]

I'm the webmaster for a similar news type operation (would love to see your site, sticky me if you don't mind) we've had better luck/returns getting our stuff into print (small magazines & newsletters, house papers etc) than other websites.
Editors of print stuff seem to be more willing to pay (minimal fees at least) to have,say, a page out of the way from a name they (and their readers) know each month.

Start with those you know, even a minimal email exchange is better than cold calling...
If you haven't already, having your headlines syndicated on moreover, feedster etc is a good way of getting your material around with a minimal effort...

[HughMungus]

Two ways.

1. Javascript include on their side, articles on your side (with links back to you). They just stick the code in their site and they can either display each article individually as specified by the javascript info or they can display whatever you want to display that day/week/month (e.g., the most-recent article).

2. XML/RSS.

[universetoday]

I've got both methods going. They're very popular and give me plenty of traffic, but I was thinking of something which would get my articles into print and into larger websites to help build some name recognition. I suppose it's going to be cold-calling, targeting news editors and letting them know I've got this news feed they can use if they like.