| |
|
Are
you looking for dynamic, automatically refreshing, sticky content
to spice up your website?
If you are
a webmaster, you'll know how difficult it is to create fresh content
to attract your subscribers and new visitors to your website.
Paying freelance writers can cost you a fortune when you are just
starting out and don't have site revenues to fund expenses, and
writing the articles yourself takes way too much time and takes
you away from other important tasks (like actually running the
site and making sales happen).
Luckily, there's
a little-known but extremely easy tool that you can use to instantly
jazz up your website and provide your traffic with valuable information.
In fact, you might have heard of this tool before. Headline syndication,
aggregators, XML format?
Sound familiar?
Yup, I'm talking
about RSS Feeds.
If you haven't
heard about RSS Feeds, or what they are, I strongly urge you to
print out this article, go to a quiet corner where you won't be
disturbed and literally devour every word of the rest of this
article. Not only will it probably save your business, but it
will revolutionize the way you think about the Internet.
And if you've
come across RSS feeds before or used them, then skim through the
next section to refresh your memory (seriously, there is a lot
of useful information that you might be missing out on) and then
dive into the meat of this article, which will show you how to
set up RSS feeds on your website to display dynamic, self-updating
content with very little effort.
|
| What
Is RSS? |
RSS
stands for “Rich Site Summary”, although other terms such
as “RDF Site Summary” (which emphasizes the file format) and
“Really Simple Syndication” (which highlights the main selling
point of RSS) are also useful in defining RSS by the book.
However,
bookish definitions don't always explain things very well.
What really is RSS?
RSS
is a platform over which a webmaster can instantly deliver
summarized information about the latest / most important
content on his website. This summary is usually a list of
headlines and snippets – the headline will instantly inform
the reader of what this new article or page contains and
the snippet (usually the first few lines of the article)
is to further entice the reader into visiting the website,
or to simply give the reader more information. RSS has evolved
into a commonly accepted XML standard, and many websites
now use RSS Feeds (XML files containing the summaries) to
publish “updates” about themselves.
From
the webmaster's point of view, an RSS feed is meant to allow
visitors and subscribers an easy way to keep themselves
abreast of fresh content on their website (without having
them visit the website first). Additionally, an RSS Feed
also allows the reader to “preview” this fresh content,
thus letting them decide immediately if the new article
/ content is interesting to them or not. All in all, RSS
Feeds have the main purpose of enhancing user experience.
Keep
that last point as we go through the rest of this article
– it is an underlying mindset to making RSS Feeds work effectively.
|
|
| Using
An RSS Feed |
|
As
an Internet entrepreneur, one of your most valuable tools
can be an RSS Reader. This is essentially an aggregator
– a collection of RSS Feeds (that you can add or remove)
from different websites that you are interested in. A typical
RSS Reader would include RSS Feeds from news sites, sports
sites, and perhaps a few niche sites (such as SEO forums,
blogs on SEO, etc.). The main purpose of this software is
to keep you informed of the latest news and content on websites
that you are interested in.
If
you have used My Yahoo!
or Bloglines , you've
probably used RSS Feeds already. These are online RSS aggregators
– you get to choose from numerous websites and within minutes
you can have your own launch-pad for knowing everything
that's happening in your niche, in the world, or in sports.
As
a first step to understanding how RSS Feeds work, I'd suggest
that you use at least one RSS Aggregator – either an online
RSS tool or RSS reading software like SharpReader
– and subscribe to a few RSS Feeds to learn how it
works from a user's perspective.
|
|
| Marketing
and RSS |
Using
RSS Feeds, websites can:
- Attract
more customers / visitors.
- Keep
subscribers informed of new developments
- Allow
subscribers to instantly learn of new articles, content
and products on their website.
- Reduce
the load on the subscriber's inbox by reserving newsletters
for important news, special product offers, etc.
As
a webmaster, you can use RSS Feeds to your advantage. Since
blogging became insanely popular over two years ago, RSS
Feeds have become mainstream. In other words, no matter
what your niche, there's a good chance that you'll be able
to find a few authority sites that publish RSS Feeds, thus
syndicating their latest headlines.
How
can you use this?
By
providing your visitors relevant, self-refreshing content
in the shape of the “latest news” by using RSS feeds from
niche-relevant websites.
Now
I'm not saying that you should cover your whole website
(or even one whole page) with RSS Feeds. Such practice is
frowned upon by search engines and will actually get your
website banned from every single search engine index! RSS
Feeds are meant for headline syndication, not for content
scrapping.
Instead,
you could use headlines from the top 3 forums in the weight
loss niche to show the latest discussion threads on one
side of the “News” page of your own weight loss website.
The rest of the page would, of course, be covered with information
(i.e. latest news) about your own website.
Or
you could put a news ticker on your politics blog to not
only give your blog a look of “being updated” but to also
provide your readers with relevant, useful information.
If
you sell sports goods and own an online store, you could
run a “sports news” feed on your main page to attract the
attention of your visitors and give your website a more
authentic look and feel.
There
are many different ways you can use RSS Feeds to add value
to your website. Make sure though, that you are merely using
these Feeds as “icing on the cake”, and not as the whole
cake itself.
|
|
| Finding
RSS Feeds |
Finding
RSS Feeds is easy; there are several RSS-specific directories
and niche search engines for you to browse through. However,
the surge of blogging in the last two years has meant that
any RSS search tool is inundated with blog spam. This makes
it a bit harder to find RSS Feeds that you can actually use.
I've
listed a few resources below that can help you get started
in your search for finding relevant RSS Feeds.
Once
you've found the RSS Feeds of your choice, it's time to
find out how to set them up on your website.
|
|
| Setting
up an RSS Feed to Display on your Website |
Internet
Marketers are a particular breed; we're always looking for
an “easier” or “quicker” way of doing things; not necessarily
shortcuts, but just ways to work smarter. It's the same with
RSS. When I first came across it, I immediately went to Google
and not only picked out a tool that could help me syndicate
my own website (so I wouldn't have to spend time learning
XML), but I also found several tools that I could use to display
RSS Feeds from other websites onto mine!
These
tools are ridiculously simple, and I'd fully suggest that
you try them before venturing into learning how to display
RSS Feeds on your webpages through code.
If
your website is in PHP, you can use the following software:
CaRP
This software also has a free version, which displays
a simple ad in the middle of the news display saying something
like “these news headlines brought to you by CaRP”. Try
it out; it's easy to use, and will teach a lot about managing
RSS Feeds.
There are JavaScript alternatives available as well (in
case your website uses plain HTML). BUT, using javascript
would sort of defeat the purpose of using an RSS feed, as
search engines cannot read javascript. It appears completely
invisible to them.
Jawfish
Like CaRP, Jawfish also has a free trial, which is once
again easy to setup if you can follow step-by-step instructions.
FeedRoll
Another JavaScript alternative is FeedRoll – this is
perhaps the easiest to use of the three mentioned here,
but it offers less flexibility and choice of feeds compared
to the others.
Of
course, if you want more options (or have ASP or something
on your website), go to your search engine of choice and
type in “How to display RSS Feeds on my website” to get
a quick listing of articles, tutorials and more tools to
help you out.
|
|
| More
RSS |
|
RSS is an amazingly versatile platform that can be used
from anything as simple as running a news ticker to something
as topical and time-sensitive as providing weather alerts
to affected areas. In fact, any information that is:
- regularly updated
- time sensitive
- new
can be a good candidate
for an RSS Feed. The key here is to remember that
there are always new uses for information and technology...
it's just a matter of pinning them down.
|
|
|
Brad Callen
Professional SEO
http://www.seoelite.com
Get
Your Free Copy of 7 Days To Massive Website Traffic!
by Optimization Expert, Brad Callen |
| If
you liked the lesson above and haven't yet signed up
for my free SEO lessons, simply submit your first name
and email address in the form below to receive the download
information RIGHT NOW. (Check your email in a
few seconds) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
