It may be tempting for some companies to use content as a ballistic attack to get the attention of search engines. After all, if one article is good, then ten versions of the same article must be better, right? Well, maybe not, according to many SEO experts who are studying the shifting rules of search engines like Google and Yahoo!.

A few years ago, syndicating content was a big deal. You could write an article, and then post it to numerous article directories. Each article could be unique enough to qualify as a new inbound link to a site. All that has changed recently, however, as search engines are placing less weight on sites like article directories, and more on social media and bookmarking sites like LinkedIn, and Facebook. Not to mention, in order to post to enough article directories to make an impact, articles need to be endlessly re-written and re-coded, or put through software designed to re-write articles for you. If you’ve ever seen a computer translation on BabelFiish, you can imagine the results of that tactic.

So if article directories are no longer as useful as they once were, how can one piece of content be used in multiple ways? It’s easy – just aim your content a bit more carefully. By targeting the sites where content can be shared virally, and passed from reader to reader through personal networks, you can ensure the same wide broadcast without worrying about mangled articles, or low readership. You don’t need any software to spin your work for you, either. You can do it all yourself, and track the results!

In creating an article, your first step toward broadcasting should be to keep the main article somewhere associated with your company. This may be a blog, or a web page. Your next step will be distributing this content to many channels that won’t force you to re-write it for originality. Social networking sites are ideal for this. Without ever re-arranging your article, you can post it to Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Next, you can explore the world of social bookmarking. Try placing your article on Digg, Delicious, and Stumbleupon. These will allow you to place the article on their directories without ever having to re-write it or change the coding in the article.

Now it’s time to put the article to use as new media. You can easily turn this content into a slide show presentation in PowerPoint or KeyNote. From there, you can use it as a slideshow in Slideshare, or as a video on Youtube or Google video. This repurposing of the content will not only widen your broadcast, but it will not register in search engines as duplicate content. You can also branch out into
Podcasting, and use your new article as a script for your Podcast. Another option for new media would be to discuss your article as a free webinar. The possibilities really are endless.