What is RSS? It is technology that can spread your
website’s content to anyone who subscribes to your RSS feed. With RSS people don’t have to go to your website to view the latest updates. Summaries or even the entire article can be read through the client’s RSS
reader. RSS For Beginners will further explain
the concept.
An RSS feed is a way to publicize updates to your website. It could be the entire update including photos, or just a summary of the latest update. Users can read a summary from your RSS and go to your site for the full details. Usually a RSS feed includes the title of your update with a link to the original source.
Why should you learn the basics of RSS? Because, RSS has benefits to both the readers and the publishers
An RSS feed keeps your readers informed. Whatever your update is, a blog post, a new sale price on an item, new music, whatever it is subscribers are immediately updated. Web users are becoming more comfortable with RSS and look for the feed to save time.
RSS can save valuable time and deliver a loyal following from busy internet users who receive the updates. By reading your RSS summary, the user can determine if the update is important to them without having to search your site to find the update.
If you are marketing online, you will reach a wider audience because people are more likely to subscribe to an RSS feed than they are to an email list. Users who utilize a RSS aggregator will be able to read your updates without their inbox overflowing.
While it may seem that the benefit of RSS is all on the user, your RSS feed can be used as a marketing tool. Subscribers to your RSS feed get the latest updates on your site delivered to them. This will focus your marketing to those who want to receive your message, and actually want your product. It also totally eliminates the possibility of your being accused of spamming.
Because RSS is still relatively new, there may be some drawbacks to trying to use it exclusively. Some customers may still prefer to receive email updates, or may not yet understand RSS. Also, some graphics and photos may not appear, but if this is how your customer wants to hear from you it is a good idea you make the option available to them.
Even taking the perceived drawbacks into account, a RSS feed will create more traffic. Most readers will want to get the entire update, so they will still visit the site.
How to use RSS for Internet Marketing.
Originally, RSS was intended for users who wanted to customize their homepage with links to their favorite sites, much like social bookmarking sites work. Applying internet marketing to the feed was an afterthought. With the advent of services like Feed Burner, your RSS feed can be spiced up and rebroadcast to a much wider audience than you could have originally found.
Every day more people are using RSS. This innovation to the worldwide web and online marketing is becoming more widely used every day. If you are promoting a website, Blog, Forum, etc. incorporating an RSS feed is crucial to the success of your efforts. You can benefit from using RSS immediately after getting the basics.
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Rob Emmerson is has helped many webmasters improve their SEO. He provides a free SEO course .to anyone wanting to lean more, and he writes a daily SEO Blog.
