Advantages of RSS Feeds

The fun of building a website quickly diminishes once you realize that you are only getting a few visitors each day and they are only ones you have told about your website. The truly sad news is that some of these people fall by the wayside as well and you are left with even less visitors. Keeping visitors coming to your website and gaining more traffic is dependent on what you put into promoting as much as how often and how interesting your information is to your readers. You should be sure to upload new content regularly and be sure to stick to your theme.

RSS feeds are a wonderful way to keep your readers informed while bringing in more traffic. With an RSS feed, your readers do not have to bookmark the page and come back all the time to see if you have uploaded new content. They will have a subscription to your feed that will be sent to their reader so they can read the headlines and short blurbs of your posts. If they are interested in reading more, they will click the link to visit your website.

All you have to do is provide the RSS feed and a subscription button. Nothing could be easier. Now, when your readers see that you are having a sale, introduced a new product, an event, or even a newsworthy article, they will know it as soon as you publish in real time.

Of course, just by adding an RSS feed will not be a miracle solution as you will still have to get the word out regarding your RSS feed. There are various ways you can announce your new feed such as newsletters, guest posts on blogs, and by submitting your feed in RSS directories.

The major advantage is that your readers will automatically know when you have updated your website or blog. One other advantage is that once you get your feed recognized on the net, you will begin to get more traffic, which will be interested in your topic.

There are several companies using RSS feeds today for blogs, forums, articles, discounts, sales, schedules, events, and more. The use of feeds will help your business or organization keep your readers up to date on important information whether you are having a sale, event, or providing local news. With an RSS feed you will have the tool you need to provide real time content to those interested without the need of emailing each subscriber.

Security and RSS   

Displaying RSS Feeds

Your visitors will be able to read the latest news as it happens, but they will be able to subscribe to your feed and read it on their desktop, cell phone, web browser, or at a website offering them the ability to keep up to date with several feeds at once. As the publisher of the RSS feed, webmasters determine the content that will be sent out to the subscribers.

For some webmasters, it is easier to syndicate content instead of coming up with fresh content. What this means is that they add an RSS feed to their website and subscribe to others RSS feeds that will display on their website. Therefore, if you have a website pertaining to technology, you would find RSS feeds that provide technology news. The headlines or short blurbs would appear on your website in the RSS feed, thus providing your readers with up to the minute information.

Of course, you will have to decide the best way to display the feed on your website that will enhance your design instead of destroying the effect you desire.

JavaScript is one of the easiest ways to display RSS feeds. In many cases, you will find a small snippet of code that you place on your website and that is it. The way it works is that when a visitor arrives to your website it will detect the visitor and send information to the feed, thus real time information. On the other hand, if you want the keywords from the feed to be grabbed by search engines, JavaScript is not the way to go, as search engines cannot read this type of scripting.

There are other options on the internet that will allow you to grab the code and place it on your website beside JavaScript that can be read by search engines. The websites offering these scripts allow webmasters to customize the feed so it will better fit their website thus making it more pleasant to your visitors.

Another option is Rss2html.php this is a script that uses HTML to display the feeds. HTML is recognized by search engines, thus the engines will be able to index the fresh content faster and more precise.

Whatever script you decide to use should provide your visitors with up to date content as well as being pleasing to the eye. The idea is to bring fresh content to your readers while providing search engines with the data they need to give you the ranking you deserve.

Security and RSS   

Online Marketing With RSS

In this article you are going to discover the power of using RSS in your online marketing practice. Actually, a lot of online marketers are not really think about using RSS to help their website. Therefore you will discover how to generate RSS the quickest way, and the correct way of using RSS.

The fastest way of generating RSS

Although there are a lot of websites that can generate RSS by scanning every page in your website, the best way of generating properly formatted and organized RSS is allowing your content management system (CMS) to generate that for you. Those CMS included, but not limited to, Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. By default those CMS systems have already had RSS functionality enabled. All you need to do is to create some contents, and a RSS will be automatically generated.

If you have already had a website in place and don't want to change a lot of your existing website, you can hire a part-time or freelance programmer to help you creating your own RSS feed. Depending on how complicated your website is, usually creating such kind of RSS feed would not take too long.

Now let's talk about how should we use RSS.

Using RSS to help your online marketing

The purpose of using RSS feed is to broadcast real-time update about your latest content. So make sure you are broadcasting contents that are relevant to your target market and your visitors.

The next benefit of using RSS is to bring links to your website. When you submit your RSS feed to various RSS sites, once you publish an article, those RSS sites will immediately show your latest article to their member and search engine. And since those sites will not get all the content from you, a link will be used to linked to your website. If people are interested in your article, they will click on the link and go to your website. Since backlink is a critical element for SEO, having links from those RSS sites can help your website ranking.

In other words, the best way of using RSS is to update your website with unique content regularly. Then once you publish an article, you will instantly get notice by search engine and links to your article.

However, please don't spam those RSS site by submitting content frequently. Depends on the terms of the RSS site, they usually have the power of pull your RSS down to ensure their content quality. So be careful on that.

Security and RSS   

Syndicate Your Website Content Via RSS

Not only will RSS help you with providing fresh content to your visitors but also it will save you time. Every time you add a new post, article, press release, or have a sale, you will not have to write an email to along with the content and send it out to subscribers.

The reason is once you have an RSS in place on your website, the title along with a short summery will be sent out via your RSS feed. RSS is nothing more than a technology known as Really Simple Syndication that ensure those that have subscribed to your feed receive real time information in the way of a short blurb.

Now, RSS cannot be read like a website page. The language used is XML so your readers will need to have an RSS reader, a browser that can read feeds or be a member of a website that offers users the ability to stay on top of their favorite feeds all in one place.

Another great usage for RSS for webmasters is that with this technology they can also display a feed on their website and provide fresh content from across the net on the subject matter that pertains to their website. The code is easy to place on the website and will show the title and blurb of all the topics from the websites the webmaster has added to his feed.

Now, when visitors come to your website, they will not only find your new information but can enjoy all the latest news right on your website.

Remember search engine spiders love new content so you will be giving Google, Yahoo, and MSN just what they want as well. The keyword rich title and blurbs will help you gain ranking for your keywords and keyword phrases so you will be able to find yourself closer to the top of the searches for those words.

Using RSS is a win-win situation. Your visitors love the fresh content, they love staying up to date on your latest news, you love the ease of use, and spiders enjoy all gobbling up the news.

Syndicating your website content by using RSS is certainly the way to go. You will be making everyone happy and giving yourself some time to work on other projects. Just remember to use the keywords in the title so you grab targeted traffic that will become subscribers.

Security and RSS   

What RSS Can Do for Your Online Business

Online syndication consist in broadcast news and web content by means of feeds, which are generated files with XML format that contain raw information on site updates, news and announcements. Such feed are retrieved by RSS aggregators that a surfer may get to stay informed, or can be republished on external websites wanting to share such content.

RSS is nowadays universally accepted, and being a spam-free way of communication between website owners and surfers, syndicating content can be the key that helps you to unleash the success that your website deserves.

An RSS feed essentially contains titles and descriptions of your content, stripping any format and style element that is displayed on-site as a part of your web design. This way, information is compacted and delivered efficiently to Internet surfers from around the world, what means that RSS feed gives to your business an international projection.

Furthermore, the titles or headlines contained in a feed are usually hyperlinked, what means that clicking on this link takes the surfer back to your source, but that is not all. This link can be also shared among surfers, what means word of mouth advertising. Finally, when your feeds are being syndicated by external websites, yours earn backlinks that contribute to improve page rank and search engine visibility.

RSS feeds are generated from your published content, and therefore this is a good way to keep your customers informed on site updates, which can be descriptive articles, news about merchandise available, or products on stock again.

Internet surfers often retrieve RSS feeds with the aid of a news reader (aggregator) which automatically refresh the content in pre-defined periods of time. There is no more work for you involved to make sure your subscribers will receive those updates because your on-site feeds generator and the surfers' aggregator make the rest of the job once the new content is published.

RSS is not intrusive, what means that surfers will have full control over the feeds they are subscribed too, factor that encourages them to subscribe to your own updates if you make sure to tell them about subscribing. Adding a visible link to your RSS feed or a nice-looking graphic may catch their eye for this purpose, but an orange square enclosing the acronym RSS or XML can do it too.

Because RSS contributes to search engine optimization, syndication also increase traffic for the website serving RSS feeds (the source site) and also to external websites that republish the source content and send back visitors who click on the headlines links.

Security and RSS   

A Quick RSS Overview

RSS can be crafted manually by editing an XML file, but it is more commonly generated by a backend script. Blog publishing systems are the most remarkable example of such kind of scripts. Besides generating feeds, scripts deliver automatic "pings," which are remote calls to updating services that continuously scan the webs for updates on any topic.

RSS feeds contribute to generate traffic, but also to reach a target audience. For instance, if your website sells hats, posting short articles about the latest fashion trends on hats will generate a feed accordingly, broadcast by the updating services and driving to your website those visitors expressly interested in hats, which may turn eventually in potential buyers.

Any website on the Internet can deliver RSS feeds to both the news updating services and surfers seeking for relevant information on keywords, topic or niche your site belong in, but integrating syndication into a website may require special knowledge, proper software or the work of an expert web developer.

As a reader, you can also retrieve information from your favorite websites using RSS. Feeds can be retrieved by the so-called aggregators, which strip the XML format to render an easily readable text. RSS updates can be broadcast in either long format or short summary. If you are setting up your own feeds to keep informed your readers, it is advisable opt for summarized content.

An RSS summary preserves the nature of syndication; provide surfers with fast-reading content, which contains a link back to the website where full story resides. Summary feeds also prevents content stealing, since it is very easy display a feed into a website as if it were generated on it.

Adding styles and a copyright notice may prevent the non-authorized distribution of your content, along with clear rules stating if your RSS content can be reproduced in full, partially or it is void. Check news websites such as ABC News, Reuters, Yahoo News, BBC, The New York Times, or CNN to read their policies about syndication and use them as example to write down your own.

Syndication is the best way to reach potential customers, and there are many RSS directories that gather the latest feeds for almost any topic, so it is easier for surfers find the information they are seeking for, as for webmasters to get the results that they want. Try yourself the potential of RSS and you will never regret.

Security and RSS   

What Is RSS And How Can I Use It For Online Marketing?

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or increasingly it can also stand for Rich Site Summary. It was first developed in 1999 and has evolved a lot since then. If you have a blog, you may have an RSS feed, which alerts interested people in the latest post or update to your blog. People who are interested in what you have to say or sell subscribe to your RSS feeds and get the latest posting as it is published on the web. Internet marketers have been a little slow to realize its potential but they are catching on fast.

An RSS feed can consist of text or an audio or video post at its most sophisticated, although whether or not video and audio posts are received depends on the aggregate reader subscribers have.

It helps with SEO and marketing because when you publish a post the RSS feed can be received by other publishers who can publish your content on their sites, which gives you an automatic backlink which in turn will help your site gain in credibility with search engines such as Google. This means a higher position for your site in the Search Engine Rankings pages (SERPS) which will lead to an increase in traffic to your site and so, theoretically to an increase in your sales. There are millions of online publishers out there, some of whom will certainly be interested in publishing your original content which automatically has backlinks to your website. This means that you can have thousands of backlinks without spending time trying to get them. Doesn't that sound good?

You can download a desktop aggregator which reads feeds from source websites and scans and collects data on the latest finds throughout the web. You and recipients of RSS feeds can choose which feeds to enter and you can customize the service. This is downloadable software which you have to pay for and the best of these aggregator programs will offer technical and installation assistance if you need it and give a complete automation for your submissions to RSS feeds as well as allowing you to use the software on all your domains. For those who are new to computer technology there are also web-based aggregators which are very user-friendly and all you have to do is register, free and start your account.

You may already get the latest weather reports or news through RSS but perhaps you hadn't realized just how powerful it can be as an Internet marketing tool. It works for publishers and recipients as there is no need to send subscribers or members of your site an email to alert them to updates. Interested people will subscribe to your feeds so there is no spam involved, and email boxes do not get clogged up if you update your site on an hourly basis.

The beauty of RSS really is in its simplicity in getting your message across to your target group, instead of resorting (possibly) to phishing or spam emails in an attempt to generate interest in your site or product or service.

There are many people out there who can help you in your quest to start using RSS to its full advantage for online marketing, and e-books too. It is a powerful tool in an online marketer's kit and one well worth investigating further.

Security and RSS   

The Most Popular RSS Reader Apps

With an RSS reader app, iPhone users will be able to get real time news from their favorite blogs, news websites, or even their favorite retail stores that offer RSS feeds. What does this mean, well, it means you have the news at your fingertips as it happens, including the best sales in town. You will not have to run home after work to check your computer to learn what is going on since you will be able to easily find the information right on your iPhone.

We have compiled the most popular RSS reader apps for the iPhone so you learn a bit more in order to choose which one will fit your needs. With this list, you should be able to easily find the reader for your iPhone and stay current on everything you desire, as long as they offer an RSS feed.

RSS Reader is a reader that allows you to add your favorite feeds and even manage them. This means you will be able to read and find the feeds you want to check up on quickly. You will also be able to cache the feeds so you can read them while you are offline as well. The app supports various languages including Russian, Polish, Italian, Korean, Deutsh, Dutch, Danish, and French to name a few. The app is free.

NetNewsWire is another free app for the iPhone. This one allows you to switch feeds simply, sync with Google Reader and even read your feeds offline. The free version does have ads. If you hate ads then you can choose the paid option for only $4.99 and you will not have to hassle with any ads.

Reeder is a paid app for the iPhone. The cost is a mere $2.99. The features make it worth the cost with syncing ability with Google Reader, browse fees, manage feeds, browse folders, manage folders, and the ability to read the feeds offline.

Feeds is a paid app for the iPhone. The cost is $3.99 with features that include two syncing methods to Google Reader, share the feeds with friends, categorize feeds, tag the feeds, and read offline.

Doppler created for Mac can also be used for your iPhone. It syncs with Google Reader without any hassles, offers a decent layout and navigation so you can easily read feeds. The cost is 99 cents.

Now, you have the answer to the most popular RSS readers for your iPhone. Do not stay behind the times, get the app and stay current on the news quickly and easily.

Security and RSS   

RSS Basics

RSS is one of the best ways to publish updates with some feeds not only publishing titles, but also summaries and even photos. Feeds that provide a short summary are often the most popular as readers can read the summary and decide if they want to read more. If so, the feed offers a link to the original post. This helps those that only want to read headlines as well as those that may be interested in a wide array of topics but do not wish to read the entire post on each subject.

Advantages of RSS

RSS provides advantages for webmasters and readers alike.

Current updates regarding local news, weather, new music, upgrades to software, or just a new post on a popular blog or any other subject matter the reader enjoys. RSS is the way for all webmasters to get the word out about sales on their website, companies offering new products or services, and of course news on many subjects.

Saves readers time. Instead of searching through all their favorite websites, news websites, and more to find the current news they can just read the headlines to determine which stories are worth reading more. This will help your readers prioritize the news and stories in the manner in which they wish to read.

Puts the power in the hand of the reader. Readers have the option of subscribing to the websites that offer subject they are interested in and will then receive updates in real time from those websites.

Helps with too much email. By subscribing to RSS feeds your email address is not provided to the website, therefore you will not be receiving extra emails. This means no spam email from the website, which is often the case when you sign up for a newsletter. Too many times, you receive more than just the newsletter, which makes many readers unsubscribe from the newsletter. This will not occur with RSS feeds, as the feed is not sent to email addresses.

If a reader decides they no longer what to subscribe to a feed, all they have to do is delete the feed and that is it. No questions asked at all. When you delete the feed from your aggregator there is nothing more to do.

For webmasters, RSS feeds can be used for advertising. The reason this can be done is that your subscribers want the latest news so you can add sales, new products, or even posts regarding your various products and your readers will be glad to receive this information via the feed.

Security and RSS   

Brief Overview on RSS Aggregators

RSS readers are either computer software or website interfaces that aggregates information from multiple sources, hence the name aggregators. Based on type, there are search aggregators, which fetch information from search engines, news aggregators, that scan news sites, review aggregators, that retrieve information from review sites, and even poll aggregators, which keep us up to date with polling data resulting from upcoming elections

Aggregators collect and organize information from blogs, social network services, video sites, news companies and many other sources, hence they are convenient to stay both organized and informed about updates, just by clicking on an RSS or XML button or link, although many news readers accept copy and paste operations to add URLs, besides an integrated search function to scan for news from inside it.

RSS aggregator are available in two main formats; downloadable software that runs in either Windows, Mac, or Linux based computers as a stand-alone application or desktop tool, and web-based aggregators, which are free or paid online services. Selecting an RSS aggregator is a personal matter because each of us have different tastes and needs.

Software is however easier to customize and usually comes with more features to customize the information retrieve, unlike most of their online counterparts. But not all aggregators are free software either; some are trial or shareware versions, or they can only be obtained after paying a price. This way, price tag is not always a determining factor to select between desktop and online readers.

Example of desktop aggregators include FeedDemon, a user-friendly aggregator that includes an RSS collection already installed to start retrieving news from different websites. Other features include podcast receiver, tabbed interface, feed storage, integrated search and watch list to filter junk feeds. However this is software is only available as a trial version that only works embedded on Internet Explorer.

Some online aggregators include My Yahoo service, Bloglines and Newsgator, an Outlook-type online reader for Windows that provides custom news channels, and data synchronization between this service (free for standard use) and handheld devices.

Desktop and online news readers are alike offering blog headlines, automatic subscription, and search feed capabilities. Some may include a built-in RSS directory, keyword filtering, feeds storage and custom layout design and feeds display.

It is recommended try several aggregators to find the right one that meet your specific needs. Some people may simply want to retrieve news, while others enjoy collecting information and displaying it in a digest format.

Security and RSS   

Understanding RSS

There are several different benefits found with RSS with the users, the content providers, and online marketers. Everyone benefits with this technology!

Users or readers do not have to check everyone of their favorite websites to find out if any new posts have been published. All they have to do is subscribe to the blogs, websites, and news sites. Once they have subscribed they can easily see all the favorites all in one place.

Once the subscriptions are all in one place, the reader can choose which headlines they want to learn more about and then just click the link to visit the website to read the rest of the article.

With an RSS feed, the only information displayed is the headline and a short summary. There is no fluff at all, so the reader can get to the point of the story. You will not find any type of spam and you never have to worry about providing your email address to learn the latest news.

The best part of all for readers is that you get to read only the news on topics you are interested in instead of skimming a new site looking for topics of interest. You will have all access to all the headlines and can decide which stories you wish to read and which ones you will skip for now.

Content providers can enjoy the benefits of RSS as they can add a feed to their website not only to provide their readers with up to date information but they can add other websites to the feed that offers the same topics. This will provide their readers with even more current information on their favorite topics. RSS feeds are also great for providing information on the newest products, sales, and events. This way your readers will be able to find the greatest deals on their favorite products as well right on your website.

Online marketers can add their products to the feed and website that offer information on similar products will grab the feed and add it to their website. This gives the marketer more outlets for selling their products as well as provides links to their website.

As you can see, RSS offers something for everyone from the ordinary surfer, the webmaster, and the marketer. This small bit of code added to a website will increase traffic that is interested in your topic.

Security and RSS   

RSS Feed Subscriptions

Why so many people enjoy RSS feeds instead of visiting a website is that there is no spam, pop-ups, or frilly articles. All the news is supplied via a headline or blurb, allowing visitors to click on news that is of interest to them quickly.

The reason webmasters use RSS feeds is to market their products or services, keep subscribers up to date with the latest news, and ensure the news of sales are released in a timely manner. News websites use RSS feeds to ensure those that are interested in news receive real time updates on subject matters that are important to them. Blog owners and organizations use RSS feeds to let their subscribers know when a new post has been published and organizations keep fans up to date on events.

This is just a few reasons to subscribe to your favorite website that offer RSS feeds. You will need a reader, but that is not a problem at all. You can easily find website that allow you to organize all your subscriptions on one page, download a reader to your desktop, or use a browser that has a built in RSS reader.

To subscribe to your favorite RSS fees, you should look for the RSS icon on websites your frequent. In most cases, the icon will be found at the top of the front page usually a bright orange icon. As soon as you find the icon, just open up the feed and find the URL. You will need to copy and paste the URL into the reader or the website that allows you to read your feeds on their website. As soon as you do this, you will be subscribed to their feed.

As mentioned above, a few browsers make it even easier as all you have to do is find the RSS icon located on the left side of the URL. Just click the icon and you will receive the up to date information from that feed which will also subscribe you to the feed.

As you do your search for RSS feeds and readers, you will find both free and paid subscriptions. If you find a paid subscription you think you will enjoy, you should research to ensure you the same information is not found on a free feed. In most cases, paid subscriptions are unique and the information can only be found via that RSS feed.

Security and RSS   

How to Get Updates Via RSS

Actually there are three ways to get updates via RSS. The first is visiting a website and clicking on the subscriptions button that links to an RSS feed. The second is researching on the web to find those websites that focus on the topic of one's predilection, and the latest is take a look at one of the many RSS directories.

These directories are websites that specializes is gather RSS feeds for you, scanning the web to find them out, and classifying every feed into the different categories they have set up to organized the information retrieved. This way, the surfer who needs to find the URL for the feed announcing the latest auction listings can find it as easy as another surfer can find the feeds for the recent forum topics and posts.

Actually RSS feed is used by a large number of websites, including the RSS directories as well. Therefore, if you subscribe to the feed provided by an RSS directory, you will always learn when other feeds have been added to the site's collection.

Although in the early days such directories only collected feeds from breaking news websites, today it is easy find sales listings, blog entries, announcements, articles, and even information about the release of podcasts, and other multimedia files.

There is a common misconception around the RSS acronym, which originally stand for RDF Site Summary, which later was dubbed twice, first as Rich Site Summary, and then as Really Simple Syndication. Nevertheless, some people tend to believe that RSS stands for Rich Syndication Standard.

Despite such information is inaccurate, some RSS directories have taken this definition for good and it is easy to find many feeds doing a research for the term "Rich Syndication Standard." Furthermore, RSS feeds are based on XML, Extensible Markup Language; hence many directories list their findings under the name "XML directory."

You may find many RSS directories doing a regular search on the web, but if you add to your query the above terms, you can find many others and, consequently, increase the number of feeds to browse and select your favorite ones. Directories do not only include a link to a fed, but to the website that originates the update.

This information is useful because you can visit the site and make sure it is authoritative, or at least serious enough to subscribe to its feed. Try the power of RSS directories and you will not regret.

Security and RSS