Send RSS Feeds

Copyright 2006 Sharon Housley
There is little argument from webmasters and publishers that RSS brings in traffic. So once you’ve made the leap and created a feed, how do you tell your visitors about the feed?
1. Submit Your RSS Feed to RSS Directories.
This will not only increase the number of sites linking to your website and increasing your link popularity, it will also increase the RSS feeds profile. A number of RSS search engines and RSS directories exist that allow you to freely submit RSS feeds. Feeds are generally categorized and grouped together by subject. Web surfers looking for RSS feeds about a specific subject will often search the RSS directories, to locate a feed that matches their specific criteria. Topic specific RSS feed and podcasting directories are also emerging. Choose a web feed’s category carefully and only submit relevant feeds to topic specific directories.
A large list of directories is located at http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
Example of Topic Specific - http://www.realty-feeds.net or http://www.religious-podcasts.net
2. Explain RSS
While you have finally figured RSS out, some of your visitors may not have. The concept while brilliant, can be a bit confusing for the beginner. The concept of RSS feeds might be completely new to some of your website visitors. Hence it is generally good practice to walk website visitors through the steps of locating, subscribing and reading an RSS feed. It is generally a good practice to include a page on your website that contains a general explanation on RSS and details how website visitors can subscribe to an RSS feed.
Sample Explanation page that can be used to on your website: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-subscriptions.htm . RSS specifications has authorized the replication of this webpage. It can be republished, simply insert your RSS feeds or otherwise customize the material to explain RSS to your website visitors.
3. Graphic on Website
Since the conception of RSS, bright graphic flags have been used to denote the location of an RSS feed. Now instinctively, website visitors frequently look for a colorful flag on websites. The looks of the flags have changed but a variety of options exists. When you add the image, be sure to link to the location of the RSS feed. Some webmasters use chicklets to indicate the presence of feeds, web surfers click on the chicklet that relates to their RSS feed reader or news aggregator and the feed is added to their list of feeds. Others feel that the volume of chicklets simply add confusion, and opt for a single relevant RSS graphic.
4. Press
As with any important addition to your company, it is completely appropriate to send a press release to let the media know you have RSS feeds available for specific content. This will often garner a little attention. Additionally, key news editors may opt to subscribe to your RSS feed in order to stay abreast of your latest corporate news. Considering the possibility of these subscriptions, makes a press release to signal the availability of an RSS feed simple common corporate sense.
5. Newsletters
Include a mention in your e-mail newsletter that content is now available via an RSS feed. Many newsletters subscribers appreciate an alternative subscription method and will subscribe to a web feed as well.
6. Auto Discovery
Some of your website visitors might be web savvy. Be sure to include an auto-discovery tag in the HTML header of each web page. Many RSS Readers will automatically discover that an RSS feed is available for specific content and notify the website visitor and ask them if they wish to subscribe.
7. Brand a Newsreader
Distribute pre-loaded RSS readers branded to your company name. The big benefit to brandable newsreaders is that you can include all of your RSS feeds in it. Any downloaders will have immediate access to your RSS feeds in the branded news reader.
Brandable Readers - http://www.deskshare.com or http://www.customreader.com
8. Blog
If you have a blog or know bloggers, be sure to share with them that you have added an RSS feed for specific content. Blogs are a great vehicle to spread the word. Marketers instantly understood the power of word of mouth, but few marketers understand the movement of blog to mouth. This growing phenomenon has added credibility to online blog endorsements.
In order to reap the benefits of an RSS feed, it is important the feed be properly publicized. Taking simple steps to promote an RSS feed will go a long way in ensuring a feeds adoption.

By Sharon Housley
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

You’ve either heard about RSS Feeds in site design or marketing forums lately or you’ve seen little RSS or XML buttons popping up on websites everywhere.

Click on one of those website buttons and you’ll end up with a page full of code that looks a lot like html.

Even though it ‘looks like Greek’ (or should I say ‘geek’) you decide not to give up, and continue on to research RSS by search engine results.

This however, only frustrates you further, as your head swims over all the strange terminology and outdated
articles leading as far back as 1998.

XML,
RDF,
RSS,
Atom,
Syndication Feed,
Aggregator,
Parsing,
Validators,
News feed,
web feed,
site feed,
and more!

Your browser couldn’t display it, you can’t make sense of it, so you eventually give up, saying: “This is
not for me! This only applies to the techno-geeks, or the big content sites - not for me or my market!”

Wrong! Creating and marketing with RSS Feeds can be both extremely profitable and incredibly easy!

Originally RSS Feeds were created for broadcasting stations and newspapers, but once the ‘average Joe’ discovered them and started ’spreading the news’, their popularity surged to the masses!

There has been a lot of speculation lately that the next generation browsers (Navigator and Explorer) will contain the ability to read feeds directly. If this isn’t a testament to the growing popularity of RSS Feeds, I don’t know what else could convince you!

Position yourself ahead of the pack on this RSS Feed phenomenon!

By Laura Childs (c) 2004 www.smartzville.com

Laura Childs is a niche marketer who clicked on a little blue button one day and decided to investigate further. The result of her research in RSS Feeds was doubled subscription rates, traffic and income within 2 weeks time! To learn more about RSS Feeds, visit www.stampedesecret.com for a free ecourse and co-authored product with Joe Vitale.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an increasingly popular method to syndicate website content and promote websites. Just as your web site can (and should) be submitted to search engines, your RSS feeds can also be submitted to RSS feed-specific directories and search tools.
Many RSS search engines and directories allow you to freely submit RSS feeds. Feed directories are generally categorized by subject. Web surfers looking for RSS feeds about a specific subject will often search the RSS directories to find feeds that match their criteria. Topic-specific and podcasting RSS directories are also gaining popularity.
As with many things in life, quality trumps quantity. It is always best to submit your RSS feeds to reputable RSS feed directories. A good criteria is to check the directory’s Google Page Rank. Good directory placement increase the number of sites linking to your website, increases your link popularity, and raises your feed’s profile.
When submitting to RSS feed directories, keep the following in mind:
Make sure your RSS feed is compliant! The best feed in the world won’t be read if the feed code is bad. Use a website like http://feedvalidator.org to make sure your code is valid.
Carefully follow the submission guidelines provided by each directory. Make sure you are not submitting an unrelated feed, a feed with bad code, or a feed with poor descriptions. Carefully choose your feed’s category and only submit to relevant categories.
Try to find niche directories suitable for your feed. For example, if your web site covers Real Estate, focus your efforts into finding Real Estate RSS directories, and submit your feed there.
To find RSS directories, do a search for ‘rss directories’ in your favorite search engine. Several web sites contain comprehensive directory lists that you can use as a starting point.
In order to reap the full benefits of an RSS feed, proper publicity is important. It takes some work to find and submit your feeds, but the benefits in web site traffic and link popularity will make it well worth the effort!

By S. Daley
This article was written for RealtyFeedSearch.com, a free real estate RSS feed directory.

Why do people submit RSS feeds? Surely there must be reasons behind them doing so faithfully. Webmasters submit RSS feeds when they update their website with new web pages or build new websites, while companies do so when new products enter the market. The one sole purpose is to drive traffic, or get visitors to their websites.

Where does the traffic come from? We need to understand how RSS feeds work so as to appreciate the whole mechanism of deriving traffic. RSS is simply put, Really Simple Syndication and in XML format. These are files that need to be parsed or read using aggregators or RSS readers.

Before you get drown in a complex myriad of terminology, I will explain things in simple digestible language. RSS feeds essentially displays news or content that refreshes and updates itself whenever the source is updated. Try to imagine that your website is a TV set, and each TV channel is an RSS feed. Each time the channel changes, we see a different image or content on your TV. The same goes for RSS feeds.

People use feeds to convey messages and bring news about finance, stocks, weather, entertainment, latest product reviews, shopping discounts etc to targeted audience. Webmasters can submit RSS feeds to RSS feed directories for free. Such an activity brings significant benefits:

1. Content Syndication

Webmasters are always hungry for unique content. RSS feeds are useful for content management and because content delivery is instantaneous without the need to dabble with and modify their web pages, it’s the choice content source of many websites today. They essentially find their feeds at RSS feed directories, either in general or niche topics. This is one main reason why it makes perfect sense to deposit or submit RSS feeds to these directories. Envisage the kind of traffic your website would receive if your feed is published on other websites in the same theme as yours.

2. Link Popularity

Did you know that you can build RSS feeds and incorporate your links to your websites? If your feed is displayed on another website, that is an additional backlink for you. This has a positive effect on your link popularity in time to come. Download RSS Builder, a freeware to try building an RSS feed of your web page. Submit RSS feeds after that.

3. Build Credibility

Almost all successful webmasters regularly submit RSS feeds of their websites. Since RSS feeds are popular, invest more time in creating news worthy information on your website before distributing the RSS feeds. This would improve the chances of getting your feeds syndicated on popular and authority websites. You can establish yourself as an expert and build credibility in the long run. Credibility is invaluable in business as people would entrust their money to you, ie purchase your products.

4. Content Delivery and Notifications

Subscribers of RSS feed directories would get occasion notifications about the latest RSS feeds available. Submit RSS feeds from time to time, and be a regular contributor of useful feed content. You would pick up many loyal fans along the way as people start book marking your website as their regular content source.

Expert webmasters understand the power of RSS feeds and more so, the importance of distributing feeds to as many directories as possible for explosive impact. Find out what secret tools they are using to submit RSS feeds to feed directories faster and reach more targeted audience at my blog.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

By Davion Wong

Davion is a successful webmaster and author and RSS feed user. Read more about RSS feeds submission and which are the best tools available to submit RSS feeds to targeted audience, gain more traffic and boost your sales at Submit-RSSFeed.blogspot.com.

Submitting RSS feeds to RSS directories can be a real pain for webmasters or business owners who use RSS feeds to make regular product announcements or promotional offers. When RSS technology first appeared on the internet in the late 90s, the usage is pretty limited. As time passes, RSS feeds have gained much momentum as content syndication becomes a widely accepted means to update web content. Let’s explore the use of RSS feeds and why you should be using RSS submission software to submit RSS feeds.

RSS is the abbreviation or acronym of Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds are in XML file format which are not readable in its raw form. In order for you to view the content of the RSS feeds, you would need a reader or aggregator to do so. There are many online readers such as My Yahoo, Bloglines, NewsGator etc.

RSS feeds are primarily created to offer dynamic content, ie content that is fresh and updated. As you can see, many news press are using RSS feeds to provide their readers with the latest news in the stock market, sports and world news. Commercial companies offer feeds to subscribers as a means to announce new products, company news, or as an advertising channel. Webmasters use RSS feeds on their websites so that visitors can always read about the latest developments in the web topic or niche such as medical, internet marketing or even stock movements.

Webmasters can build RSS feeds from their web pages and submit RSS feeds to specific niche RSS directories for distribution. This is an excellent way to reach targeted audiences and gain significant traffic. Search engines are not the only places to grab free traffic. When webmasters list their RSS feeds in the RSS feed directories, visitors to these directories may like what they are reading and visit the parent websites. On another note, interesting feeds may be syndicated by fellow webmasters in the same niche. This is invaluable since you would be getting traffic from their websites as well as get some one-way links. We all know that this would have a positive impact on your search engine ranking.

If you are not using RSS feeds to promote your website, you are really losing out to your competitors. That said, it can be a lengthy process to submit RSS feeds for inclusion in the news or RSS feeds directories. Increasingly more webmasters are turning to RSS submission software as a solution to submit RSS feeds.

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate the benefits. Imagine that your income is 30 dollars per hour, and you need to spend about 3-5 hours to manually submit RSS feeds to about 50 - 60 feed directories. The time you lost is worth more than 100 dollars to you each time you submit a RSS feed. Multiply that by the number of websites you have and it is easy to understand why it is more economical to use RSS submission software to submit RSS feeds. Visit my blog to read more about RSS feed submission and popular and affordable RSS submission software webmasters have in their toolkit.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

By Davion Wong

Davion is a successful webmaster and author and RSS feed user. Read more about RSS feeds submission and which are the best tools available to submit RSS feeds to targeted audience, gain more traffic and boost your sales at Submit-RSSFeed.blogspot.com.

How and Why Should I Let Others Syndicate My RSS Feeds?

Copyright (C) Brandon Hong 2005
www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com

How %26 Why Should I Let Others Syndicate My RSS Feeds?

When you allow others to sydndicate your feeds, it basically means thatyou are giving permission for webmasters, ezine publishers, writers and so onto distribute and circulate your content freely.

You might have notice small orange buttons on websites that says “xml” or “rss”.

These are basically buttons with the URL of the RSS feeds, to allow other people to syndicatethe website owner’s contents.

And contents basically mean written materials, like advertisements,messages, newsletters and so forth.

In the past before the advent of Rss feeds, if someone wanted to use your content he/shewould have to copy and paste your entire article and post it in his web site or ezine.

This method is still practiced today.

And when you write a new article, this same person would have to copy your article and post itagain.

The process is repetitive.

However, with RSS feed syndication/circulation method, the person who wants to use your contentonly has to do work once.

And he only need to copy the URL of your RSS feed.

There is no repetition of mundane work.

You can continue to write content and publish your feed,and anyone that has your RSS URL can have the latest news from you, be it on his web site orby using a newsreader.

In my Videos Course on Blogging and RSS, I show you two simple ways of letting others syndicate your feed.

Again, I’ve done all the brainwork for you to come up with the simplest way, all you need to dois just copy and paste.

Find out more about the full listing of videos and what you’ll learn at
www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com

By Brandon Hong

Brandon Hong is the author of “Marketing Rampage with Blogs and RSS” Videos E-course and also “Blogs and RSS Revealed” comprising an Ebook and Audio webcast, that teaches businesses strategies of building more responsive buyers and increasing search engine rankings, using Blogs and RSS.
www.marketing-rampage-with-blogs-and-rss.com
www.blogs-and-rss-revealed.com

%26lt;em%26gt;Delivering regularly updated content to website visitors is easier through RSS resources.%26lt;/em%26gt;

RSS, also known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, has been used for years by online visitors. However, it has only recently begun to gain popularity among webmasters as a means of providing visitors with constantly refreshed content. These feeds were originally developed to deliver updated news more quickly, but they have since evolved to allow for nearly instantaneous updates of many types of information.

Growing websites can benefit from RSS feeds since they allow for fresh copy to be updated regularly online. Once the RSS feeds are inserted into the web pages, they provide a steady stream of syndicated content updated continuously. Most RSS feeds consist of a headline, content summary, and a link to the actual online article. They are typically composed in XML, a markup language similar to HTML, to allow webmasters to manipulate and integrate new copy into their existing site pages.

The increased popularity of these RSS feeds have benefited online sites as they the have helped to drive increased traffic and search engine ranking results. The fact that the syndicated content is changing constantly in RSS feeds means that search engine spiders are likely to visit and index your website pages more often. RSS feeds also keep webmasters from having to worry about updating their content, and visitors can rely on fresh articles being available to read whenever they want. Articles are also easy to locate on RSS feeds, as they can be categorized for easy navigation. This increases the chances of receiving visitors from other sites.

While modern technology has made integrating RSS feeds into one’s website easier, contributing content to RSS feeds remains a bit more complex. To effectively post copy onto RSS feeds, you first need an RSS program that will allow you to format your content for syndication. If you are a professional web developer, for example, you might be interested in creating your own XML files to display content. This option will allow for more flexibility in the way content is displayed. If you lack the online knowledge to understand how to use XML, you might want to invest in one of the many RSS software programs that allow users to create and publish syndicated content without having to use any XML language at all.

One of the most popular software programs is FeedForAll, which is an inexpensive yet effective tool for developing and maintaining an RSS feed. This program, and others like it, allows users to utilize their own syndicated content, or to download existing feeds from the internet. It also provides users with the ability to manually edit their site to include pictures and colors which may create a more exciting online experience for customers.

As the need for the internet to provide instantaneous access to a wide variety of information continues to grow, RSS feeds have become a critical component of information distribution. It is likely that RSS feeds will serve as an important tool for sharing information on the web for years to come and could, in the not too distant future, even begin to rival e-mails as the preferred method of knowledge sharing. Therefore, understanding how best to utilize RSS feeds into your website may have lasting, positive effects on your business’ growth.

Online reprint rights granted as long as the article is published in its entirety, including links and resource box. © John Doetsch 2005.

By John Doetsch

John Doetsch is founder of Websition.com where you will find additional articles and free web content written by the Internet’s most gifted authors.

Authors submit your articles to the Internet’s newest searchable article database.

Increase your traffic and link popularity by going to http://www.websition.com/ today!

Benefits to RSS Feeds…
Benefits to RSS
RSS streamlines communication between publishers and readers. Since RSS has had a popularity surge, webmasters have been experimenting and using RSS feeds to deliver content in new and innovative ways. Typically, RSS feeds contain news headlines and content summaries. The content summaries contain just enough information without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details. If the reader is interested and wants additional information they can click on the item in the feed, accessing the website which contains additional details. RSS readers aggregate multiple feeds, making it easy for individuals to quickly scan information contained within each feed. Feeds are generally themed, allowing users to opt-in to feeds that are of interest.

The big benefit to RSS is that individuals opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply remove the feed from their RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.

RSS is a great supplemental communication method that does not burden the publisher with maintaining lists or following strict privacy guidelines. RSS feeds are compiled according to the user’s choices, removing any burden that is placed on publishers of email newsletters. Publishers no longer need to be concerned with spam, privacy policies, and age guidelines.

Publishers using RSS as a communication vehicle are able to create keyword-rich, themed content, establishing trust, reputation, and ongoing communication with current and prospective customers.

What Kind of Information Can be Delivered in RSS Feeds?

Blogs Feed
Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.

Article Feed
Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further.

Forum Feed
Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed.

Schedule Feed
Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events, notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas.

Discounts / Specials Feed
Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this a step further, allowing users to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases.

For example, this service will generate a URL than can be entered into a news reader. The feed is updated each time an item is added to Amazon that meets the specified criteria or keywords - Amazon Search Feed - http://www.oxus.net/amazon/

Ego / News Monitoring
Companies or individuals interested in receiving headline news based on a specific brand or keyword can use RSS feeds to monitor news sources.

For example, users can use the following tool to create a feed that will allow them to receive filtered news from Google News. They will only receive items related to a specific keyword or phrase they setup - http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php

Industry-Specific RSS Feed Uses Include:
Technical professionals in specific industries have also developed RSS feeds as way to market, promote or communicate within their specific industries. In many cases, this has expanded their reach and increased communication with current and prospective customers and clients.

RSS feeds can be used by realtors to communicate the time and location for open houses, announce new property listings or promote decreased mortgage rates. Content feeds can also be used by universities to communicate sports scores or event schedules. Computer service professionals can create feeds to notify clients of potential security breaches, virus risks or outbreaks. Ultimately, RSS is molded to meet the communication needs of many sectors. Consider how RSS can benefit your business and supplement your communication needs.

RSS feed creation tool for publishers interested in creating fresh content - FeedForAll - http://www.feedforall.com

By S. Housley

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com .