You Are Losing Money If Youre Not Using RSS Feeds On Your Website!
(An RSS primer can be found near the bottom of the article) A commercial website in 2005 is really costing itself money if it does not utilize the myriad advantages of implementing RSS feeds. RSS provides near real-time delivery of information your website visitors are interested in, it provides constantly updated content that search engines crave, and it is quite simple to implement. RSS is a great way to increase relevant content to your website that your visitors will find quite helpful. For instance, if you have a website which covers "search engine optimizing", you can search for that term in major news outlets such as Yahoo, then apply that search to an RSS feed which will provide constantly updated keyword-rich news and information to your site! We all know that a site that is updated frequently looks more important to a search engine than one that is static. Most news providers allow you to use RSS feeds from their site for free-And why not, since it gives them more exposure and links. Because the feeds must be handled on the server-side, a piece of software must be utilized to display the feed that is usually in the form of an ".XML" file on your web page. There are a few out there that handle this task for you quite nicely, I recommend Carp. It's free, it works on PHP servers, and it is easy to setup and use. Once it's installed all you have to do to put it on your page is put code where you'd like the headlines for that feed to appear. The Carp documentation does a great job detailing the procedure on their website. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a technology that has seen its popularity skyrocket in recent months that allows news items, forum posts, etc. to be delivered to your desktop using a newsreader called an aggregator. The Firefox browser allows for RSS feeds to be "bookmarked", and that bookmark folder shows the latest feeds from that site. You've probably seen the links to RSS feeds (identified as little rectangles with usually the letters "RSS" or "XML" appearing on them) appearing on more and more websites, but didn't know what it was all about. You maybe even clicked on one and saw a page of computer "code". The reason it shows the code instead of easy to read information is because most browsers are not aggregators. That link is useless in your browser (aside from the Firefox bookmark technique mentioned previously), but it's pure gold in your aggregator! The aggregator I use is another Mozilla product, Firefox's cousin, the Thunderbird e-mail client that does a nice job as an aggregator. I use it to keep up on the posts of my favorite search engine optimization (SEO) forum at Seochat.com. In conclusion, RSS is a great new technology that benefits website visitors as well as webmasters. When visitors are kept happy with more fresh relevant content, and search engines are excited to crawl your site and give it more weight, it results in more sales for you! Written by Erich Bihlman, of Bihlman Consulting - PC and Internet Tutoring and Website Design in Prescott, Arizona. Prescott computer
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RELATED ARTICLES
How to Reel in Web Site Visitors by Building Your Own Blog
I know, I know, blog this...blog that. Seems like everyone is on the blogging bandwagon these days! I admit that I'm not quite there yet, but I'll be joining the blogging club soon.
Why are you abusing RSS
When you are involved in RSS everyday you get to see the fantastic opportunities RSS can bring to the web and how it can contribute to bettering the browsers experience and the webmasters bottom line. Unfortunately there is a dark side of RSS use.
RSS & How to Use It -- Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of the article that aims to give you just enough information to help you understand RSS and start using it.
How to Create an RSS Feed
An RSS news feed can be used to communicate with your target audience. It is an ideal means of notifying people of new content on your website without the need for them to keep on visiting your site. You can send newsletters to your readership without having to use email and risk being accused of spamming. You will be comfortable in the knowledge that people who request your feed are actually interested in it because they have actively subscribed to it. This article will explain just how to create your own RSS news feed.
There are a couple of ways to create an RSS file, you can use an editor designed for the purpose or you can create a file using a simple text editor. The latter will require you to learn some XML whilst the former will do the hard part for you. First off I will describe an RSS file, there are several versions and I will be showing you version 2.0, the latest RSS version.
An RSS file looks just like an HTML file except it has different tags and the files end in .rss or .xml rather than .html. The file is made up of header information and item information, the item information contains the actual news items.
The first section of the file contains the header information. This states that the file is XML and which version, the encoding used and the version of RSS that you are using. This part of the file is mandatory. Next up is the channel tag, this encloses the whole of the rest of the file. This is followed by a title, description and link which explain the what the feed is about and what website it is associated with. The final part of the header is the optional image information. If you use this the software that is used to parse or read your file can display a small picture such as a logo.
Please note that in these examples I have used square brackets instead of angled brackets.
[?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?]
[rss version="2.0"]
[channel]
[title]The Widget news feed[/title]
[description]The latest news on widgets[/description]
[link]http://www.widget.com/[/link]
[image]
[title]Widget News[/title]
[url>http://www.widget.com/widget.gif[/url]
[link>http://www.widget.com/[/link]
[/image]
The body of the file is made up of the news items. Each news item is enclosed in the item tag and comprises of a title, a description and a published date. The date needs to be in the format shown in the example below.
[title]Which is the best Widget to?[/title]
[description]In this article we discuss the release of several new widgets, but which is the best widget.[/description]
[pubDate]Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:38:50 GMT[/pubDate]
[link]http://www.widget.com/the-best-widgets.html[/link]
[/item]
You can have as many items in the feed as you like but many webmasters just show the 10 most recent items to keep the bandwidth usage down and also so not to overwhelm the end user with too many items.
Finally the file is ended with the closing channel tag and a closing RSS tag.
[/channel]
[/rss]
I have covered the basic tags to create an RSS file, there are other tags that can be used and these are explained in the http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss (RSS 2.0) specification.
Once you have created your file you will need to verify it is ok, to do this upload the file to your server and then go to this validator to validate the file. Your file is now ready. Now anyone can subscribe to your feed just by pointing their RSS reader to your RSS file.
That is the basics covered. I will be covering other areas in future articles as there is far too much information to fit into a single article.
Im a Failed Blogger!
I've never been popular in my whole life. I think there must be something inside me that didn't get enough attention as a kid or something because I seem to find myself looking for it all the time. I think about some of the career paths I have walked down: I've been a musician, a pastor (who gets to get on a platform and talk to people ? getting attention ? even if I do have something selfless to say ? I like the feeling I get when I feel like people "get it" ? anybody else have this in common?), I've been a stand-up comedian (here, there's a real pressure to get people to like you because if they don't, they let you know fast). I even started "blogging" because a lot of great bloggers are out there and they seem to know how to type just the right things to get lots and lots of feedback. Heck, I figured I'd tried everything else, why not see if I get some feedback, too. And you know what I found out?
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Flush out the writer in children. Blogging could draw out a young writer and open doors to their future. Consider encouraging your child to start blogging!
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Use These 7 Ideas and You Will Never Suffer From Blog Block Again Guaranteed!
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Learn how to Create a RSS Feed
Creating an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is really quite a simple process. RSS is a lightweight XML design that is really easy to setup and implement. It's a great way to pass on important updates, send out your articles or news, or send out your favorite website links!
Advertising in RSS Feeds: Are we risking disaster?
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Cash In Your Blog - 4 Ways to Profit From The Hidden Revenue In Your Blog
Most webmasters and online business owners know that a blog can bring you additional revenue from advertising, and more traffic from search engines. Then there's the additional benefit of having a great way to spark productive dialogue between you and your prospects.
But did you know that your blog itself may be worth thousand of dollars to you in its present form?
The day I learned that my blog held such hidden treasure was one of those happy accidents that can make life such a fun adventure. All I wanted to do was find out why some of my newsletter subscribers had not crossed over to my blog audience.
In an informal poll, I found that many of the fans of my newsletter were overwhelmed with the amount of free information on my site, and felt that they'd never catch up to reading it all.
This led to several discoveries about how I could find a way to make the information more accessible to them without disrupting the enjoyment of my feed subscribers.
If your blog has export capabilities, you can use any of these techniques to generate revenue from your blog and make both your newsletter and blog subscribers deliriously happy.
Method One: Monitor Your Popular Blog Topics as Ideas for Future Products
As you begin to monitor which topics have the most responses, you'll be able to see a pattern that tells you what your audience likes the most about your site. These themes often give you clues about what your next product could be.
For example, as I continue to cover free Google tools, tips and news in my blog on Tuesdays, I've noticed that this is the day that I tend to have the most subscribers reading every entry. With that information I was able to create a free Christmas gift for my audience that they'll be able to use as a reference guide.
Your next best selling software idea, book or tool could come as a result of watching topic popularity, if you learn how to track audience response.
Method Two: The Subscription Model
When you're blogging daily, sometimes several times a day, and much of the information on your blog continues to be useful months after you publish it, your audience is probably aware of this.
Search engines may be doing a fine job of helping your fans find the information they're looking for at your site, but you'll also find that a cross-section of them would rather digest a periodic collection of your posts for use at a later time.
Should you find this to be the case, instead of purging your archives, you can create a "Best of" compilation on a weekly or monthly basis, and charge for electronic distribution. Or you could charge advertisers to be featured in these periodicals the same way you would a newsletter, and offer them to your audience at a discounted rate, as a premium version of your present ezine.
Method Three: Turn Your Archives into an Ebook
With a blog that focuses on a narrow, popular theme, you could be sitting on a gold mine and not even be aware of it. Whether your blog contains tips for newbies in your field, expert advice for veterans, or success strategies that build on each other, you could be in the position to supply a demand for needed information.
There are a couple of tricks you'd have to learn to convert your archived blog posts into an ebook, but you'd be surprised about how easy this process can be.
Method Four: Make Your Entire Blog Into a Printed Book
I know what you're thinking. "Why would anyone pay for my blog as a book when it's free at my site?"
Under certain circumstances, you'd be surprised to find how many people would rather have a portable collection of your blog posts when the quality is consistent. The online version of your blog is the ultimate free trial. Many sites have been using this logic long before the web log came along to allow users to preview their services.
For example, the sheer volume of the free traffic generation tips on my site was repeatedly described during my informal poll as "overwhelming". It's one thing to try and read 2000 web pages in front of your computer, but it's not as daunting to peruse a 400 page book in the comfort of your home.
Converting your blog into a yearly volume may be a viable solution if consuming the amount of data in your archives is a daunting task. And there are ways to accomplish this that have no start-up costs.
If you're still not convinced that it's not worth the set-up to convert your blog into a periodical, ebook or printed edition, consider this.
On Monday morning I issued a press release regarding the transformation of my blog to a book, as a test to measure interest. It's almost 4 a.m. Pacific time as I write this, and so far it has been read over 23,000 times, resulting in a distinct increase in general traffic, not to mention the best initial sales debut of any product at my site since this past summer.
Just imagine what that kind of interest could do for your site - and how much money you may be leaving on the table right now. Making your blog available in other formats is worth a look.
Top Ten Reason to Publish an Ezine AND a Blog
Blogs are the hottest thing going these days when it comes to marketing on the Internet. A blog is a way of delivering your messages and article to clients. They are a like personal web sites, easy to create and far less expensive than traditional web sites.
What is a Blog?
Q: Not to ask a ridiculously obvious question, but what is a blog? And what's the
future of blogs and blogging?
How to Write A Blog... And Survive
The question of the day is "Should you start a Blog?"
Blog Problems
What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I'm concerned the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity. The other day I decided to do some research on the Web and try to connect to some blog writers out there that interested me. Let me tell you it was not an enjoyable task as I had envisioned. I spent four painful hours surfing through around a thousand on-line journals, and I found only a few that interested me. What are we doing out there people?
First of all, just getting to a blog can be a pain in the arse. For example, you type in the words 'Philosophy blogs' and a whole bunch of sites come up. Some are conglomerate sites with thousands of journals, but the area you're searching for may have only one blog in it! This is because they separate the blogs into a million different categories, like 'love', 'lovers', 'lovable' etc. Why not have just a few main categories to choose from?
The next problem is the content. People with 'philosophical' blogs are having personal chats with their mates about the local dance competition on Tuesday! Why not go to a chat room if you just want to talk to your friends? Blogs are supposed to be a personal viewpoint expressed to the whole Web community. Wouldn't you actually like to meet more people like yourself? How is this going to happen if you talk in strange uncommon slang and acronyms that you and your friends can only understand? Please stick to the subject at hand, and take it at least half seriously.
Another major problem is the fact that you can find a really cool blog that sparks an interest, but then find that the writer hasn't added an entry in over a year! What's it doing on the Net? Have these people passed away? I seriously doubt it, as there are so many blogs in this 'lost' state. Having a blog is a responsibility; it's a shared diary for the whole community. How can someone form a relationship if you only write in your blog once a millennium?
Back to the subject of content: These on-line journals are a real chance to communicate regularly with others with similar views to yourself. We can learn a lot from each other, as each human is an individual with special traits and skills that only they have. So why do we see so many blogs just talking about trivial nonsense like 'Who the coolest movie actor is.' Humanity is an intelligent species evolving everyday towards a higher consciousness. So where are all the thinkers out there, the people who have taken us to the next levels of spirituality and scientific exploration? I'd really like to hear what you've got to say, but all I can find are philosophical beliefs on why died pink jeans express one's true inner self.
The issue of making comments on someone's blog is also a controversial one. Why have comments sections if you're not going to reply to people who have expressed an interest in what you've had to say? How is this community going to function if all the conversation is one-way! Come on people, wake up and smell the onions! Let's change the blogging community into the awesome structure of shared knowledge that it was intended for. Please don't let it turn into the small-talk world of chat rooms.
So You Have a Blog, Now What Do You Do With It? Blog Basics
(This article assumes that you have already set up a blog on your website. I highly recommend using sBlog: http://servous.se/)
Why Blogs Have Become the Search Engine Optimization Equalizer
ALEXA WEIGHS IN...
What Are RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds.
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