Using RSS feeds to promote great web content

What is RSS?

There's some dispute about what the RSS in 'RSS feeds' actually stands for - here are the options:

• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary
• RDF Site Summary

For the sake of this website, I'm going for Really Simple Syndication because it best describes what the system really does.

RDF stands for 'resource Description Framework' ... enough said, no need to explain why I'm not using that one!

There are two parts to RSS feeds:

• The feed itself, that is to say the content that you have created on your website or blog.
• The RSS/news aggregator, which pulls these feeds together and brings them together as a single page.

Content can mean audio, video, images or text.

In it's simplest form, RSS feeds work like this:

• Someone visits your website, loves your content and wants to know when you've written new pages.
• They subscribe to the RSS feed on your website
• Every time you produce new content, without you having to do a thing, that person gets an automatic update of that new content

That's all very well, but why would you want to know all this?

Why RSS feeds are great for websites

RSS feeds are a great tool to use on your website because:

• It takes the content to the user, rather than them having to go looking for it
• It encourages website loyalty = return customers = more chances for monetization
• It allows you to incorporate your content into cool widgets which use the system. Cool widgets = more site attention = more chances for monetization

Are you getting my drift here?

Use RSS as one of many possible marketing tools on your website - put the word about, encourage user loyalty and repeat custom.

How to add RSS to a website

If you seldom update your website, don't bother using it.

People subscribe to feeds because they expect regular updates and they don't want to miss them.

However, if you're following the advice of this website and creating a content rich website based on high demand/low supply/high profit keywords then RSS is definitely something you should use.

Generally, you should look for a web creation service which has RSS built in.

All the popular blog software like Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad integrate the system and blogging - along with podcasting - is probably the biggest user of this technology.

Many content management systems - like Mambo and Joomla - have it built in too, so every time you save and publish a page, it's sent to your subscribers automatically.

Now for the science ...

Don't worry too much about these, but I've offered brief explanations just so you know what's going on if you see these terms referred to.

• Ping: In very simple terms a 'ping' is an alert that you've got new content on your site. It alerts aggregators and directories that your RSS feed has been updated.
  
• XML: Stands for Extensible Markup Language, but don't worry about that yet! It's a language, much like HTML, which is used for carrying data rather than displaying it. That makes it ideal for use with RSS.
  
• Permalink: This is a URL that points to a particular blog entry after it has moved from the front page to the archives. It's a permanent reference for a particular page, one that won't change.
  
• Trackback: Trackbacks are used mainly for communication between different blogs. If a blogger comments on or refers to an entry found on another blog, and Trackbacks are supported on both blogs, then the blogger who made the comment can notify the other blog with a "TrackBack ping". The receiving blog will show a summary of the comments and will link to all the comments below the original entry.

RSS in action

Having done the 'science' bit, let's see how easy it is when put to use on a website - and what better way to demonstrate than with the website you're looking at right now!

On the page 'My blog' you'll see a list of pages which have appeared on my RSS feed.

Each has a brief summary (a 'teaser' into the main feature), a publication date and permalink.

If you click on the orange graphic at the top (on my left hand navigation, not the image!), it will open up a page called home-internet-businesses.xml in your browser - so long as you're using Internet Explorer.

This is the best way to see how XML pulls data together and displays it as a simple page.

To use or not to use?

Static websites without feeds aren't a lot of good.

People like dynamic sites these days, and in the search engines, content rules, especially fresh, keyword-rich content.

So put it on your website shopping list, and when you're working out what it is that you want from your hosting company or web creation software, be sure that Really Simple Syndication is part of your package.

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