Its getting increasingly difficult to reach your targetedaudience these days by simply using email. Even if you havea large ezine list theres no guarantee your message willbe read. This is because todays spam filters andfirewalls may block or delete your email before it evenreaches your intended audience. A great alternativesolution is to use RSS.
In this series of articles I will discuss:
1. What is RSS?
2. Benefits of RSS Marketing
3. What are RSS Feeds and Why You Need a RSS Reader?
4. RSS Tools You Need
5. How to Get Started With RSS
6. How to Create an RSS Feed for Your Web Site
7. How to Syndicate Your RSS Feed
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Its a new wayfor people to publish and distribute their content ie news,headlines, newsletters, articles etc. Its a Web contentsyndication format. An RSS file is written in a simplelanguage called XML. It is a lot like HTML, only simpler.An XML file contains the information (Title, Descriptionand Link URL) that your audience will receive through a RSSreader.
Heres an example:
<item>
<title>Web Site Design | Hosting | Marketing</title>
<link>http://www.isitebuild.com</link>
<description>Affordable Web Design in Maryland</description>
</item>
Syndication means you dont have to visit each siteindividually to see whats new -- you simply scan headlinesor brief article summaries and click to read the full textBenefits of RSS Marketing
1. RSS is dynamic. When a publisher changes content,consumers know it instantly.
2. Review a large number of sites in a very short time ie you can review 20 headlines then choose which one to read.
3. Distributes content to consumerswho might be too afraid to subscribe to your ezine - they can remain anonymous and dont need to subscribe or unsubscribe.
4. Bypass spam filters, firewalls, and avoid getting viruses. Consumers opt-in to receive RSS feeds.
5. Can replace or be an additional channel to distribute content besides using email to send your newsletter or ezine.
6. Allows consumers to see some of the producers contentwithout needing to visit the site.
7. Provides fresh content for your web site - by adding RSS to your web site you can automatically publish other peoples content.
8. Increase search engine rankings - search engines love web sites that provide fresh content on a continuous basis. ie adding an article feed willprovide that fresh content.
9. Save time - instead of browsing multiple sites to find information of interest, syndicated content can be delivered directly through your RSS Reader. You scan the headline that interests you, then click to go directly to the source.
Read Part 2 of this article:
What are RSS Feeds and
Why You Need a RSS Reader ( RSS Aggregator )
About the Author
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)owner and author of Maryland Web Design, Hosting, Marketing Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles