How to Use an RSS Feed To Get and Retain More Customers and Prospects.
Typical RSS Feed Icon
For an excellent expanation of RSS in plain English look here.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary and is used to describe a standard method of distibuting (syndicating) information or Web content. Its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the feed with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content can include data such as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, adding new products or even corporate information.
The Benefits of An RSS Feed
If you have a website that you update on a regular basis you will benefit from an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. Once you have RSS on your site your visitors can elect to subcribe to your feed when they will receive information in real time in their browser or other RSS reader.
You don’t have to be a techie to take advantage of this convenience, you can receive information in your browser without having to methodically go to the different websites. Instead of having to search for the news it finds you. Most major websites and, nowadays, many smaller ones plus blogs offer RSS feeds, signing up for one is free, so you can easily keep tabs on your favourite topics.
So for news, sports, blogs and other online publications the benefits are obvious – get information to your visitors even when they aren’t on your site. When your RSS subcribers get a bit of information that wets their appetites they will come back to your site for more. In this way an RSS feed can keep your site on top of your customers list.So it’s a great way to stay in contact with your visitors and is a useful adjunct to email contact.
An RSS feed can boost your sites position in the search engines. A properly designed feed can almost immediately boost your site as compared to the four to eight weeks it can take using conventional methods.
Your potential customers feel more comfortable clicking on your RSS subcription button than they do subcribing to a newsletter because they do not have to share any of their persnonal information such as their email address.
Spam is a continually growing menace and more and more people are using spam filters of some kind, this can reduce your email deliverability. An advantage of your RSS feed is that it won’t get caught in your recipient’s filters.
RSS feeds work best on sites that offer specific and targetted information on a routine basis. Also on sites that change or are added to regularly, such as realtors, where new products are added and/or prices change will benefit from RSS. As in a newsletter you need ot offer worthwhile content that is of value to the recipient otherwise your prospects will unsubscribe. Your feed shoult temp or lure your readers, don’t give them the full story but include a call to action or a good reason to get them to your site to get the full story.
You can tell a website that has an RSS feed as it has the following icon.
Blogs and RSS Feeds.
If you are using a blog such as WordPress either as your main site or as part of your site a blog, as a standard, incorporates an RSS Feed. See the top of this page to see the RSS icon. Typically blog RSS feeds will distribute information on posts and comments. You may find this type of RSS feed sufficient for your needs or you may want to install (or have installed) a more configurable RSS feed on your main site.
Using Your RSS Feed.
The whole poing of creating RSS Feeds is so you can tell others about new content and headlines ony your web site. When users looks at your feed they can choose which headlines or items they are interested in and go directly to that content within your site. Others can display your RSS feed on their website and fed to users of mobile phones.
Your feed can be submitted to news portals, RSS aggregators (web-based RSS feed reader) and you can submit your RSS feed URL to a host of RSS feed submission directories such as Syndic8, Technorati Ping Us and Rocketinfo.
Easily Add RSS To Your Website
You can easily add RSS to your website, go here to find out how.
Increase Traffic, Backlinks and Pagerank
Find out how you can powerfully and easily increase traffic to your website, get more one way backlinks and increase your pagerank, go to RSS Power Plus
RSS Marketing In Depth
This is the most comprehensive guide to RSS marketing on the Internet. Learn more about the Power of RSS.
Further Information About RSS Feeds
SearchEngineWatch || Small Business Computing || Webopedia 1 || Webopedia 2 || Wikipedia
RSS Service
Let us assess the benefits of adding an RSS feed to your website. We can offer a bespoke service to suite your needs, ranging from setting up the RSS feed to a fully inclusive service including broadcasting to RSS directories and directories. Just complete the form below to get the ball rolling.