Get More Visitors by using RSS Feeds!!!

RSS Feed Basics!

2006-12-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

RSS Feed Basics by gocken

In a world heaving under the weight of billions of web pages, keeping up to date with the information you want can be a drag.

Wouldn't it be better to have the latest news and features delivered directly to you, rather than clicking from site to site?

Before RSS, several similar formats already existed for syndication, but none achieved widespread popularity or are still in common use today, as most were envisioned to work only with a single service. These originated from push and pull technologies. Two of the earliest examples are Backweb and Pointcast.

There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. RSS feeds are just a special kind of web page, designed to be read by computers rather than people. It might help to think of them as the free, internet version of the old-fashioned ticker-tape news wire machines.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) provides an easy way to monitor fresh content. RSS feeds highlight new material so you don't have to repeatedly check a site yourself for updates.

RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software

In general, the first thing you need is a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them.

A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. It is common to find web feeds on major websites and many smaller ones. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom.

RSS-aware programs are available for various operating systems. Client-side readers and aggregators are typically constructed as standalone programs or extensions to existing programs such as web browsers. Many browsers have integrated support for RSS feeds.

There also are other applications that can convert a RSS feed into several usenet articles, viewable through the major newsreader software such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Forte‘ Agent: an example of such applications are nntp//rss, a Java coded program, or RSS Feed Converter a script for the popular mail-newsserver Hamster.

Some aggregators combine existing web feeds into new feeds, e.g., taking all football related items from several sports feeds and providing a new football feed.

On Web pages, web feeds (RSS or Atom) are typically linked with the word "Subscribe", an orange rectangle, ?, or with the letters ?or ?. Many news aggregators such as My Yahoo publish subscription buttons for use on Web pages to simplify the process of adding news feeds.

If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader

Most sites that offer RSS feeds use a similar orange RSS button, but some may just have a normal web link to the feed.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for RSS feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to RSS feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.

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Article Source: ArticleRich.com

What Is RSS?

2006-12-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

What Is RSS? by Madison Lockwood

RSS is technology - a simple software program - that allows you to access web and blog content automatically. The acronym's most popular translation is "Really Simple Syndication. Once your browser or computer has an RSS reader on board, you can subscribe to any number of RSS "feeds." A feed is simply a way in which a reader may subscribe to website content - most commonly blogs or news sites. A news site, for example, may list their latest headlines or entire articles in their feed every time a new article is published. A blog would publish this feed as a series of recent posts.

Feeds are published by millions of publishers, from small individuals to large organizations like Newsweek. The value of a feed is that it brings the most current site content to you in a format that is easily scanned; further, you are spared the task of visiting each source site each day. This is typically done through the use of what is called an 'aggregator' or 'feed reader'.

Feed readers or RSS readers, are software programs that run on your computer (or PDA or phone); let you easily subscribe to feeds, and allow you to read through them efficiently. Some are relatively simple, showing the headline and summary. The fancier ones often work with (or in) your browser to make viewing the material look much like the source page. Once you have a reader on your computer, subscribing to a feed with is an easy click or drag from your browser. Sites that provide RSS feeds will usually have a button for that purpose.

There are several RSS feed formats as well as one with an entirely different methodology called Atom. Atom has become popular with some bloggers and blogging tools. Some aggregators can read both. The other acronyms you will see in "feedspeak" are XML, which stands for 'extensible markup language' and is the code standard for these simple text feeds. An 'OPML" file is a format for indexing hierarchical feed lists. If you dive into this web habit in a big way, your aggregator or reader may keep your subscription list in an OPML file.

An RSS feed is a great method for staying abreast of issues and topics that interest you. There are a number of feed "libraries," so to speak, from which you can learn what's out there in your areas of interest. Google has a built-in reader that makes the subscription process easy, as does Yahoo. Firefox has a downloadable extension for the purpose of aggregating RSS feeds, as well as a default ability to save RSS feeds as "live bookmarks" that update via the RSS feed. You can download a number of stand alone readers and aggregators; you can find them through a simple web search.

The whole RSS "movement" is a step towards utilizing the Internet more efficiently. The trick is to avoid overloading your email inbox with daily reports that you end up ignoring most of the time. For that purpose, there are sites like Feedster that will search millions of RSS feeds for articles that are relevant to your interests. Like any search tool, however, these services are hit and miss. They are still working off keywords and sometimes what they find is relevant, sometimes not. But if you want daily news broken into categories, it's great technology once you learn how to make it work for you.

Madison Lockwood is a customer relations associate, specializing in small business development, for Apollo Hosting. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

What Is RSS And How Can It Benefit You!

2006-12-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

What Is RSS And How Can It Benefit You? by Bernie Wiemers

RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. It is part of the XML family that is used for syndicating information. Put simply RSS allows one web site to share information with another web site.

As a web site publisher, RSS offers a way for them to publish their information on many web sites, which in turns increases their reach on the Internet and the amount of traffic they receive to their web site. They also receive more one way links back to their web site. These benefits result in an increase in their search engine ranking.

As a web site owner, RSS allows them to receive up to date links to information on a regular basis that runs on auto pilot. When the publishing site is updated, their web site is also updated.

The result of this is that their web site is updated more regularly which also increases their search engine ranking.

The other benefit the web site owner receives from using RSS is that their information remains "fresh" which encourages their visitors to return on a regular basis.

However, the web site owner does not receive the complete articles, instead, they receive a feed that contains a title, a brief description and a link to the article that resides on the publishers web site.

The main disadvantage to the web site owner is that they trade off traffic for content, as their visitors need to visit the publishers web site to read the complete article.

But, this is a minor disadvantage considering all the benefits that RSS offers the web site owner.

The web site owner will need to install some software in order for them to receive RSS Feeds.

This software ranges from commercial packages the web site owner can purchase all the way down to freeware. Before purchasing any software you should research the different software packages that are available to ensure you get the software that is most suited to your requirements.

Fortunately, setting up an RSS feed is relatively straightforward and should only take a couple of hours at the most, and, once RSS is set up their is very little maintenance (if any) required.

If you are a web site owner, you should consider the power of RSS and what it can offer you and your web site.

Bernie Wiemers has been working in the information technology industry for the
past 19 years and has been on the internet since it was available in Australia.

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Using RSS Feeds To Feed Your Website More Visitors!

2006-12-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Using RSS Feeds To Feed Your Website More Visitor's by Emmanuel Aubrey

Creating Your own rss feed is a great way to get links to other peoples website and get traffic to your website. after getting over the code which can be copied and pasted it's pretty much like running a blog.

Well First of all let me say if your feeding your web site visitors more it should be feeding your bank account more money , but that depends on you marketing strategies, marketing startagies are covered on the membership site check author box, this article will show you how to gain traffic using rss feeds.

RSS stands For "really simple syndication" at least that's what google told me. Anyways if you don't know rss is a program or a script that runs on your web site that automatically updates using other peoples content. so if your not experienced with rss feeds you may be wondering how is using others peoples content going to get you traffic well there are a number of ways

First Having content that updates regularly is good in the search engine eyes plus most like when you have links coming in and going out (more in than out).

If your using Articles from other peoples website or copied articles put rss feeds on the same page with feeds that have the same keywords as the article and you wouldn't get a duplicate content filter ( that is when the search enginge's don't index your page because its the same as many others.

By the way through testing i have found that the person with the most links going to the same article get listed. For instance if you have the same article as me on your website and we both have nothing else but that article on that page if you have say ten links going to that page and i have 5 for a particular search engine you will get indexed and i will not.

Another way to use Rss feeds is to create your own you can do this easily by creating a blog and syndicating it, there is directions at blogger.com on how to do this.

To learn more about using rss feeds or creating one go to http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

To get custom rss feeds for your webpages for instance you have a web page on cat collars you can go to http://news.yahoo.com/rss and go down to create your on feed type in cat collars and there you go copy the url and paste into the rss code in place of the default url.

There is more to learn about rss feeds you can find out every way to use them By Taking The Time To Learn More

Emmanuel Aubrey Website Creator/Power Affiliate.
sign up for free ebook Free Web site Traffic Ebook or sign up for traffic club Increase Web Site Traffic

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

How to Boost Your Business Utilizing RSS Feeds!

2006-12-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

How to Boost Your Business Utilizing RSS Feeds by aims1

The two new kids in the block are dramatically changing the face of online marketing, helping marketers reach millions of potential customers easily and very cost effectively, even for free. The names of these new kids are: RSS feeds and Weblog (now widely used as Blog) marketing.

So far, traditionally when most webmasters think of marketing, they have listed writing articles, placing ads in various ezines and newsletters, submitting ads to free and/or pro advertising sites that work, and optimizing their web pages for higher rankings on the search engines, some viral techniques, and of course permission based e-mail marketing, although it was still risky.

It was risky because people who are sick and tired of receiving thousands of spam messages all day long, were some times considering the permission based email messages, too, as spam and were treating them accordingly.

Marketers were using the legitimate email marketing no matter how risky it was, because they had no alternative to deliver their messages and ads directly to their target audience. Email marketing was an effective delivery channel for successful marketing.

Then another effective delivery channel was discovered which has been called RSS feeds, providing websites with relevant content, while offering marketers a powerful marketing avenue with almost no risk.

Therefore, RSS feeds has been comfortably used by most marketers. The another reason for the popularity of RSS feeds as a marketing avenue is that this powerful marketing strategy can be used at no cost at all.delivery channel is called RSS.

When we take a take closer look at a general overview of using RSS in your marketing arsenal, we realize that RSS feeds are delivered to websites as valuable content. What type of content? The content delivered through RSS feeds can be articles, stories, press releases, announcements, updated info, company details, products and marketing.

So, the RSS feed delivery makes this marketing channel a valuable communication tool as well.

But in order for your target audience to view the content via RSS Feeds, they will need to download a special reading program called as RSS aggregator. Some of these aggregators are available at no cost while others have a subscription fee.

You may ask, what is an RSS aggregator really? It is a special application that will allow end users to subscribe to RSS Feeds thus allowing them to read and view your new content.

Of course, you can still use e-mail to deliver your news and updated content. E-mail is not going away as some writers have predicted. In fact, when you compare RSS to e-mail, since they both have their own opportunities communication differences, and characteristics, you will see that RSS feeds are much more safe, effective and economic. Yes economic, because currently you don't have to pay any money to disseminate your RSS feeds to tens of thousands of distribution points all over the Internet.

RSS Feeds are safe, because they only delivered to subscribers, in other words they are delivered to websites which subscribed on their free will to receive these RSS feeds.

This might be an important reason that RSS is growing at an alarming rate. So much so that business owners need to take a closer look at how to use this to help make your web business more competitive and eventually more profitable..

In fact, search engines favor the web businesses which utilize RSS feeds as a marketing avenue. So, we can say marketing through RSS feeds would greatly help websites get higher page rankings, and higher placements at search engines, thanks to RSS technology.

But remember that there is no overnight solution to accomplish better rankings or getting more customers.

However, using these innovative tools can help you grow your business and substantially increase your sales, profits and revenues in a relatively short period of time. Here's some helpful sites for additional help:
http://www.make-rss-feeds.com
http://www.mywebfeeds.com/
http://www.small-business-software.net/display-rss.htm

Now you can take a closer look at how RSS can literally change the face of your business in a good way and then take an active start to include RSS in your overall marketing arsenal as an important marketing strategy.

About the Author: SevimOR has been an online marketer, owner and operator of several Marketing websites since 1997, offering all businesses awesome exposure, powerful marketing, millions of impressions to substantially increase sales, revenues & ROI, at:
http://www.aall-dreamlands.com
http://www.aaa-newswire.com/
http://www.aaa-advertise.com/

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

RSS Feed Tips to Help Search Engine Optimization!

2006-12-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

RSS Feed Tips to Help Search Engine Optimization by Sharon Housley

Copyright 2006 Sharon Housley

RSS feeds are a great communication medium, and when properly managed, web feeds can bring in significant Internet traffic. RSS feeds should contain compelling themed content with episodic titles that are united in common broad theme. Use RSS feeds as an online marketing and search engine optimization tool. Just as optimizing an HTML web page will increase exposure, so too will an RSS feed that is properly optimized and promoted. Use these simple tips to improve your web feed exposure.

Channel Title

The channel title in your RSS feed is one of the most important aspect. The channel title should be keyword rich and contain information related to the general theme of the RSS feed. In order to maximize compatibility with RSS readers, it is best not to include any HTML in the channel title. The channel title is a website visitors first glimpse at the RSS feed, so its important to make an impression and attract the interest of casual browsers. Additionally, many of the RSS feed directories and search engines use the information contained in the RSS feed's channel title and description to index the feed. In order for the feed to be properly categorized, it is important that the information contained in these fields be relevant to the contents contained in the feed. If included at all, the blog, brand, or company name should be at the end not the beginning of the RSS feed channel title.

Channel Description

The channel description field provides an opportunity to expand on the broad theme of the RSS feed. The channel description should contain related keywords and phrases, but it should be written to capture the interest of readers not search engine spiders. HTML can be used to decorate and emphasize specific text in the description field. In summation the channel description should provide a compelling overview of the RSS feed's contents.

RSS Feed Item Titles

The item titles should be 50-75 characters with spaces. In order to increase readability and compatibility with news readers, the RSS feed item titles should not be encoded with any HTML. Think of an RSS feed item title in the same way that you would a webpage title. The RSS feed item title is your opportunity to capture the interest of your reader. Really an RSS feed item title is nothing more than a headline. The most effective item titles are calls to action that grab the readers attention. Include pertinent keywords or keyword phrases in the items title and this will help any individuals doing deep feed searches for specific content.

Optimize RSS

Optimize all aspects of the web feed. While the feed should be optimized for search engines, using the same techniques a webmaster uses on a website, the optimization should not be at the readers expense. The content in an RSS feed is often what leads readers to click or not click through. Readers will judge RSS feeds on the quality of the content. This means that grammar and punctuation do matter. Consistent grammatical errors will reduce the writers credibility and the number of subscribers.

Anchor Text

Using RSS feeds, publishers have the unique opportunity to determine the anchor text that will be used to link to internal website pages. RSS feeds are often syndicated, and even more often compelling feed items will often be re posted by other publishers. With that in mind, when including links back to a website in the item description field, use anchor text that is a relevant keyword or phrase. Anchor text is one factor that search engines use in determining a website's ranking for specific keywords and phrases.

Number of Feed Items

Routinely prune the old items in an RSS feeds and archive the content contained in the feed to ensure that feeds load quickly in RSS readers. If you are using a third party service to host your feeds, keep in mind that FeedBurner will truncate or not display RSS feeds that it finds to be too large.

Heading Tags

If you are displaying an RSS feed as an HTML web page it makes sense to use H1 or H2 tags to display the RSS feed's item titles. If the RSS feed is optimized, the website will benefit from the keyword emphasis by using the header tags.

RSS Feed URLs

As with HTML web pages, the URLs contained in an RSS feed should contain keywords if possible. Use hyphens not underscores, to separate the keywords in the RSS feed's URL.

Add an Image

Consider adding an image to your RSS feed to enhance its appearance in an RSS reader. The image should be no large 144x400 and it is recommended that the image be 88x31. Most RSS readers will display the feed image above the feed contents, this is a great way to reinforce brand and establish brand recognition. Additionally you can add images to the RSS feed's description field. In all cases, it is important that the full URL to the image be referenced, because if the feed is syndicated it will report a broken image if its attempting to retrieve it locally.

Some of the RSS feed directories use the feed's website favorite icons to flag the RSS feed. The RSS feeds containing a favorite icon stand out from others in the directories so be sure to include a favicon in the domain's root directory. RSS feeds are a great marketing tool, but like web pages, they must be optimized so that you can reap the full marketing benefits. Taking the time to implement some basic optimization tips will steadily increase your RSS feeds exposure.

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.

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

Top 10 RSS Do's and Don'ts!

2006-12-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

Top 10 RSS Do's and Don'ts by Sharon Housley

RSS is not quite a household word, but technically astute individuals are adopting the use of RSS feeds at an alarming rate. If you are interested in jumping on the bandwagon, but not quite sure of where to start, consider following these simple RSS feed tips to maximize feed compatibility and make your feed stand out from the crowd.

RSS DO's

1. Titles and Descriptions.

Always include meaningful keywords in your RSS feed's Channel title and description. Many readers will view or search for topic specific RSS feeds using keywords or keyword phrases. If you have descriptive keywords in your RSS feed's title and description the feed is more likely to be located and subscribed to by interested parties.

2. GUID Format.

Always include a GUID with each feed item. The GUID is a globally unique identifier. Each post should use a different GUID. The GUID will in some cases assist RSS news readers and aggregation software in determining when new content has been added to the RSS feed or when existing content in an RSS feed has been modified. If you do not use GUID's, the software used to aggregate the feeds may have difficulty detecting changes to feed items or the software may not always recognize new content.

3. Publish Dates.

Always include a publish date on feed items. The publish date should be used even if the content is timeless. The Publish Date will help readers determine that status of the content contained in the feed item.

4. Polish Your Feed.

Consider including images within your RSS feed. While the added images will not necessarily improve ranking, they will add a polished look to your RSS feed and help brand your feed.

5. Feed Hosting.

Either host your own feed, or set it up to forward to a third party from your website. This will allow you retain complete control over the RSS feed. You will not need to rely on the stability of another company. If you control the forwarding and at any point you are dissatisfied with the service provided by the third party, you can redirect the feed to another location.

RSS DON'Ts

1. Plagiarize.

Do not plagiarize content in your RSS feed, there is little more to be said. Written words are considered protected in most countries. Posting someone else's work and taking credit for their words is wrong and will damage your reputation as a credible source.

2. Splog.

Do not create splogs by automating feed creation. Splogs just clutter the search engines and directories and make it difficult to locate RSS feeds with meaningful content.

3. Violate Copyrights.

Do not violate copyrights by republishing an RSS feeds contents. If you quote content from another RSS feed, credit the source and provide and link to the original source of the content. As a rule of thumb, editorial content should exceed the length of the quoted material in the post.

4. Violate TOS.

Do not republish RSS feeds without confirming that feed syndication is allowed. The terms of use are not always apparent, so it is important that you check the terms of service on the publisher's feed subscription page prior to syndicating the contents of another publisher's RSS feed.

5. Provide Multiple Feed Formats.

Do not provide multiple feed formats for the same content. As far as the subscriber is concerned, the version of RSS that you are using is irrelevant. Multiple versions of the same feed simply cause confusion. Almost all RSS readers and news aggregators support all versions of RSS, simply choose a version and provide a single feed.

By adopting good feed practices, you can reap the benefits of having an RSS feed. Following these simple RSS do's and don'ts will get you started on the path to RSS success.

About the Author:
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.

Article Source: www.ArticleRich.com