How to Source and Share Content on Your WordPress Site

When you consider adding new content to your website or blog, you’re likely to think about creating long form articles or original posts. This is only natural, and most sites will want to prioritize unique content. However, it can also be a smart move to source and share relevant third-party content with your readers whenever you have the opportunity.

One of the best things about the internet is how much information it provides access to – there’s an article or website out there about almost anything. Linking out to this content, or curating it into helpful resources, is both a service to your readers and an excellent way to take some of the pressure off of yourself.

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Article by WordCandy guest author – Find this article in its entirety HERE on WP Explorer’s website

In this article, we’ll talk about why you might want to share third-party content, and discuss the most common ways to do so. Then we’ll introduce some handy WordPress plugins to help you get the job done. Let’s get started!

Should You Consider Sharing Third Party Content?

It’s important to have plenty of quality, original content on your website. Sharing your own unique ideas positions you as an expert, and including too much duplicate content on your site can be problematic for search engine optimization. However, it’s also very beneficial to reference and share external content alongside your own work.

Sourcing and sharing relevant third-party content is a smart idea, for the following reasons (and more):

• It relieves your workload – you can include more useful content on your site without having to do everything yourself.
• Offering external sources and citations improves the credibility of your own content.
• You can position yourself as a knowledgeable authority by pointing readers to the best places to find information.
• Sharing others’ content is an excellent way to foster connections and relationships.

If you never link to or share external resources, you’re missing an opportunity to become part of the larger conversation that already exists online. So try to find a balance between original and shared content that works for you.

How to Share Content with WordPress

Now let’s discuss how to actually start sharing third-party content. There are plenty of options out there, and the best approach for you will depend on your site, field, and audience. Most likely, you’ll want to use a combination of strategies.

Here are a few of the most effective approaches:

• Simple linking. Creating external links within your content is easy, and enables you to provide citations, along with further information you don’t have time (or room) to cover yourself. It’s a basic strategy that anyone can benefit from.
• Content aggregation. This approach uses RSS feeds to automate the process of content sharing. Which in turn makes this a quick, easy option. You can embed feeds on your site to pull in and display relevant content from around the web. This provides your readers with real-time updates on important information and saves you a lot of time. ]
• Content curation. Curation is the process of finding outside resources and presenting them to your readers though a blog post, newsletter, social network, or some other method. You start with third party content, but add in your own flair or opinions. It’s perhaps the most time-intensive of these options, but can provide the most control and potential value.

All of these approaches require a little upfront work. Fortunately, WordPress offers plenty of tools to help you implement content sharing strategies.

It’s true that one of the best things about WordPress is that there’s a plugin for just about anything you might want to do. Finding the perfect plugin can be difficult, though, so below we’ve gathered together some of the best content curation and aggregation options for sharing third-party content…

Read on…article continues HERE on WP Explorer’s Website