RSS Feeds and Article Marketing

RSS feeds are currently an under used way of marketing your articles. You can enhance your visibility and your readership through RSS feeds and gain more web traffic.

In case you aren't familiar with RSS, it often stands for Really Simple Syndication and lets website owners quickly and easily publish syndicated content in real time. Though it's been around for years, it's popularity is still limited considering how practical and powerful it is. Not only can subscribers keep up with your content in real time, other publishers can link to your feed and use it on their site for up to the minute content.

Because of it's sophistication, RSS is a powerful tool, still overlooked by many marketers. Because subscribers don't share their email, multiple messages can be sent in a day, without being regarded as spam by an inbox monitor. Feeds are sent to a feed reader or aggregator and don't use email addresses at all.

It's not the purpose of this article to describe the full workings of RSS. If you do want to know, Wikipedia has a great, technical explanation. In simple terms though, a website author creates a feed on their website. They may use feed creation software, or they may use a web based resource like Feedburner to do it for them. Interested readers click on the link on the website. It might say RSS, Feed or XML. They then take the URL of the feed and paste it into a feed reader or aggregator, such as the web based ones found on My.Yahoo, My.MSN and Google +. The summaries of each post or update are then listed for the subscriber to read. If they are interested, they can click on the link and read the whole article on the publishing website.

How is Article Marketing achieved through RSS feeds?

As an author, create an individual feed for your site. If you're publishing in article directories, it's probably done for you. As a marketer, you need to take advantage of that and post the feed link to popular RSS submission sites. Once this is done, every time you publish a new article, it's instantly added to the feed. In addition, add your own site's feed link to every article you submit, creating more quality linking that search engines love, as well as encouraging readers to subscribe to your own site's feed.

Using your RSS feeds via your article marketing efforts is an additional way to get potential new customers to your site. In addition, you can use Google AdSense in your feeds to gain an extra revenue stream.

The biggest advantage of using RSS feeds is that people who subscribe are interested in your articles and updates and want to know when you have published something new. It also can assist you with your website ranking in the search engine results, because search engines prefer sites with regular updates.

Now is the perfect time to start adding your RSS feeds to your article marketing efforts and start to reap the results.

Explained: Really Simple Syndication   How to Properly Get More Subscribers for Your RSS Feeds   The Magic of RSS   How to Use an RSS Feed to Increase Results in Search Engines   Making Your Own RSS Feeds   Choosing an RSS Reader   

Using RSS Feeds In Business

An RSS feed - which stands for "Really Simple Syndication" - allows one website's content to be shared, displayed, or syndicated on various channels throughout the Internet. An RSS feed sends out all the essential information - pictures, text, and metadata - and allows aggregators or readers to customize how that information is viewed.

So how do you utilize this technology for your business?

First of all, most blogging software and websites provide an easy way to create multiple RSS feeds. You can create multiple feeds for each category your site blogs about or one feed to include all updates (or both). You can then put a link on your site, giving people access to your feed, which they can they use in their own aggregator or reader.

Once that is set up, you've created a great way to keep your customers, employees, and others updated about what's going on with your business. You can use RSS to send documents, video, audio, pictures, and more, and those who subscribe to the feed will be able to receive that information almost instantly.

You can also create a private or password-protected syndication feed. Some companies use this as a way to supplement (or even replace) e-mail. This way, you don't have to worry about exchanging e-mail addresses; you only have to provide the individual with the RSS feed and/or the password. For a small business, this can be a great way to provide certain customers (like "gold members" or other paid subscribers) with exclusive coupons, updates, etc.

You're also able to send your feed out to RSS directories, blog directories, and feed sites. This will give you increased online exposure and perhaps bring in customers you wouldn't otherwise reach.

RSS feeds are also a great way for you to stay up to date on what's going on within your industry. On top of any other research you do, you can subscribe to news sites, your competitors' RSS feeds, or any other pertinent information you may need to stay informed about what's going on in the market. And since RSS feeds are practically instantaneous, you'll always be the first to know.

RSS feeds are a great way to bring the Internet to you, instead of having to go out and find it. Its applications are endless and can help you connect with people. By setting up, sharing, and utilizing an RSS feed, you can make a big difference on your bottom line.

Explained: Really Simple Syndication   How to Properly Get More Subscribers for Your RSS Feeds   The Magic of RSS   How to Use an RSS Feed to Increase Results in Search Engines   Choosing an RSS Reader   The Benefits of Using RSS Feeds   

Blogging on RSS Feeds

A news/web feed is a data format that's used to provide users with content updated frequently. Users are allowed to subscribe to it thanks to content distributors who syndicate the web feed. An important blog feature is the capability to show other blog's new entries automatically. Blogging on RSS feeds can be as easy as pie.

For example, on Google Blogger, after you select "Layout" and click on "Add a Page Element", a list of elements that you can add on your blog will appear. Under the "Feed" element select "Add to Blog" and a dialog box ("Configure Feed") will open. Here you can paste the RSS link URL from the external blog in the "Feed URL" box and click on "Continue". From here on you can select how and where do you want the feed to be displayed. It's as simple as that!

Blogging on RSS feed can get you more traffic as users will simply visit just your blog to see what's new not only on yours but on others as well.

You can also use lists of RSS directories. One of the key advantages of this kind of lists of RSS directories and blog submission sites is that it offers all submission links directly and you don't have to lose time to explore the directory and search for the submission page by yourself.

Since a number of sites make it hard to find the submission page to discourage spam and automated RSS submissions, this ease of submission is just by itself a considerable effort. Also, to avoid any problems, you should use only English based global directories, without any geographical/regional limitations, superficial or not up to date (shouldn't include sites that are no longer working or unreliable), which do not contain any service that doesn't seem 100% trustworthy or reliable.

There are numerous feed directory websites which offer you the possibility to subscribe to any number of existing RSS Feeds, and the majority of these sites are free and easy to use. Among those which you can trust are websites like http://www.rss-dir.com or http://www.wingee.com . If you want to make your published content more accessible to users, you should research these directories and try to get your feeds published in as many as possible, since it's a proven fact that this will increase the number of readers you have.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and start Blogging on RSS feeds.

Explained: Really Simple Syndication   How to Properly Get More Subscribers for Your RSS Feeds   The Magic of RSS   How to Use an RSS Feed to Increase Results in Search Engines   Tracking News Through RSS Feeds   What Is RSS? Or What Does That Orange Radar Thingy Do?