Increase website visibility with your own RSS service 24 May 2005
Just over a week ago we looked at how you can keep up to date with information from around the web by using an RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) service to get articles delivered direct to your computer in the feature 'Don't miss a trick with RSS'.
Here we discover why and how you can use the system to distribute your information to a large and diverse community of RSS users, who are actively seeking information on your topic.
Why provide an RSS feed?
- RSS is an excellent and cost-effective way of driving traffic to, and increasing brand awareness of, any website that publishes content.
- RSS is a pull-based delivery system (where the subscriber accesses information as and when they want - the opposite of email). This avoids issues of spam filtering blacklisted domains etc.
- You can alert customers to news, events, product reviews or new product listings without them having to go to your website - vastly improving your site's visibility and reach.
- Customers choose to subscribe. By doing this, they confirm that they're interested in your business and its products or services, which gives you access to a captivated audience that you can target your marketing material at.
- Due to active subscription, content and newsletters have to consist of high quality relevant information - improving the overall standard.
- RSS has become available on mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones - further extending your reach.
How to use RSS to publicise your site
RSS allows you to distribute files detailing headlines and a short summary of "items". Items are generally web pages that you'd like others to link to, for example, a web page containing new products, change in service or general news.
A channel containing RSS code is then set up that can list up to 15 items. This is then uploaded to your web server. When you have the information that you want to distribute via RSS it is important to validate RSS code with a program such as feedvalidator as the code they contain must be well formed if they are to be distributed without errors.
Creating an RSS code to distribute your content can be done with just a little technical knowledge in a few hours and many programs allow you to do this automatically. Full instructions on creating RSS code and channels are available from Search Engine Watch, Web Marketing Today or EEVL.
Spread the word
When you have created your RSS feed the next step is to make sure people know about it. To do this you can inform a news reader website. You should also use your own website to inform visitors of your RSS service and add links and instructions on how they can receive it.
You can link to your feed with an ordinary HTML link. However, many sites use a small orange XML icon to link to the feed.
