How to Increase Your Website Traffic With RSS Feeds
Introduction to RSS Feeds RSS is an acronym that stands for Really Simple Syndication. In layman terms, it is a way to syndicate information on blogs and other websites so that it can be delivered through a software platform to a person without actually having to visit a website. Software like Google Reader can be used to read RSS feeds and they are a way to allow a person to read a blog's material without actually having to visit that blog. For most people, this seems like a bad idea for blog marketing simply because all of your money is made through getting people to come to the blog. However, this is a short term view and one that you absolutely can not take if you want to be successful at blogging in the long run.
What is an RSS Feed?
If you aren't sure what an RSS feed is, how you can use one and what the advantages of RSS feeds are, this article is for you! When I spoke at the Monterey Bay Consultants Group in April about blogging, I remember one of the questions asked from the group was, "Who has time to check and read all of these blogs?" It was a great question. I answered the question with my method of deciding which blog posts to read and that is by looking at my RSS feed. Some of the members of the group had no idea what I was talking about. I then took the opportunity to explain to them what it is and how I use it. Let me break it down as simple as possible for you here: RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication" and people use "RSS feeds" to distribute and gather information from throughout the Internet.
RSS - Really Simple Screw-Up
RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication". I obviously haven't put an RSS feed on my blog site yet because If I had you would see this button on my page! (I need to jump on that! ) The RSS Box (a little orange box with white stripes arching like a rainbow from the top left to the bottom right) would symbolize that I offer a feed of my site that can be sent to a viewer's RSS reader (usually seen on your browser's homepage). I use IE (Internet Explorer) and goggle as my email home page, so I can go to my RSS reader (the same symbol you would see in your menu bar in the upper right section of your Google home page) when I log in. This allows me to see at a glance if my favorite RSS feeds (listing of sites) have been updated.
The Power of RSS in the Online Publishing World
RSS basically enables users to receive new publications from multiple Web sources onto their computer. As to whether the original information is a Blog entry, news headline, press release or a podcast, with RSS the subscriber can receive the information in one standard format. The end user can subscribe to an RSS feed from the web page or various web pages of his choice (by simply clicking the RSS button). The RSS reader checks the subscribed feeds for new content regularly and automatically downloads any updates that it finds providing the subscriber with the feeds. For end users, this means that RSS delivers the latest news onto their computers, making it possible to stay in touch with the huge amount of information available from all their favorite websites.