Why You Should Share Your Competitor’s Content

February 21, 2015

The daily life of a blogger consists of scrolling through social media and blog feeds in order to find the most share-worthy content for their audience. They know all about the importance of adding value to their online presence and want to find articles their audience will care about and learn from.

But wait.

What if the great content was made by a close competitor?

Some bloggers will bite their fingernails while freaking out that they might lose their traffic to a competitor, which leads them to sit on the article and never share it.

This is the wrong way to look at blogging.

Blogs are here to be a learning center, a place where readers can go to learn from the best of the best content. Sometimes this means accepting that your competitor has already created an incredible resource on the subject.

So why should you link and share their content?

Your audience will love you forever

As a blogger, you are writing for your audience. You want them to visit your website, get the most value possible, and keep coming back. A great way to do this is by including other links that are relevant to your post’s topic. This way, your audience learns more about the subject and knows you care about their education. My motto is “if it will benefit my community, I’ll share it.” That and “hot chocolate is always the answer.”

You’ll appear more confident in your own brand

People who know they consistently produce great content aren’t worried that sharing a competitor’s article will make them lose all their traffic. They’re confident in the value they give their readers and know that sharing credible external links will not deplete their audience.

Tip: When linking to outside content, click the option that says “open link in a new tab” when you type in the URL so your blog window still stays open while your audience browses the other source. Then your visitor won’t have to hit the back button to get back to your blog. This makes it as easy as possible to consume all the content provided.

You (naturally) want your competitors to do the same

You want link love, I want link love, we all want link love. As a quick SEO lesson, the more quality links your domain earns, the stronger your domain authority will be. In simpler terms, when a credible blogger links to your blog post, it helps to grow your blog’s overall influence and ranking in search engines. Therefore, it’s great when a competitor shares your link, so scratch their back by sharing a link to their content in return.

For example, byRegina and Olyvia are in my niche of blogging and branding, but we work together to help each other succeed. Erika from Olyvia mentioned me in her post Should I Turn Off Comments? and Regina from byRegina mentioned my #createlounge Twitter chat in 33 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media.

Even though all three of us could be considered competitors, both Regina and Erika create knock-out content that I love sharing with my audience. Plus, we’re all friends. BBFFs actually (best blogger friends forever).  Spread the love and your competitors might just do the same.

We’re all in this together.

Let’s stop the unhealthy blogger comparison and competition cycle. We should all want each other to succeed. We can all add value to the web. Let’s work together to make each other stronger than ever. Who’s with me?