What the Heck is RSS and How Will it Help Me?
RSS, RSS, RSS... you hear the constant chant, but who really knows what the heck RSS means?
Although it originated in 1997, most folks still dont know how RSS works, and want to know What is RSS? and How will it help me?
I had only a very cursory understanding of RSS until last week, yet when trusted colleagues start telling me that its an effective way to get traffic to your site, it was time to learn more.
So what is RSS?
RSS stands for Real Simple Sydication and is a way for you to publish (or feed) whats new information about your site. A single item will typically include a headline, a snippet of content and a link to your site.
Using an RSS feed reader, anyone who has subscribed to your feed, will be notified when you publish new items to your feed.
There are many RSS feed readers, also known as aggregators, to choose from. I started off with FeedReader, which is a freeware application for Windows.
Get it at: http://feedreader.com
After trying out a few other readers, Ive now settled on FeedDemon which was written by Nick Bradbury, the creator of TopStyle and HomeSite.
You can get FeedDemon which comes with a 20-day free-trial period at: FeedDemon.com
Heres a good list of the readers available: http://www.2rss.com/readers.php
RSS is published in XML format. All that means is that the extension used is .xml, without the quotes. So, for example, my new feed is located at: http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/wp-rss2.php
If you go to that page, without using a reader, youll see mostly gobbledy-gook. Look closer and youll see that the coding starts to make some sense.
Heres an example of how a single news item appears on an XML page:
<item> <title>How to Lose 14,000+ List Subscribers Overnight</title> <description>Not only can you lose a guy in 10 days, you could lose 14,000+ of your subscribers OVERNIGHT. Learn how to avoid making this costly mistake.</description> <link>http://netprofitstoday.com/_npc/2004-12-14.html#mistake</link> <category domain="">List Building</category> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:09:07 -0800</pubDate> </item>
When you use a feed reader, such as those mentioned above, youll see the feed in its proper, easy-to-read format.
To create the XML page, I used Feed for All, an RSS feed creation tool. The Feed for All software also comes with a free trial and is available at: http://feedforall.com/
Heres how the item above appears in an RSS reader.
How to Lose 14,000+ List Subscribers Overnight Not only can you lose a guy in 10 days, you could lose 14,000+ of your subscribers OVERNIGHT. Learn how to avoid making this costly mistake.
The title, How to Lose 14,000+ List Subscribers Overnight, is linked to http://netprofitstoday.com/_npc/2004-12-14.html#mistake which readers can click to read the full article.
So far, so good, but how do you get your feed published so people can read it?
There are a huge number of RSS directory sites. At the top of the heap in a Google search, I found Robin Goods RSSTop55 - Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites See it at: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
So, in a nutshell, get a reader, and an RSS creation tool. Create your feed and submit it to the directories.
Traffic to your sites will increase and so will your revenues. Real simple (syndication).
This is a cursory overview of how RSS works. I confess that I did a considerable amount of reading to come to that understanding.
Here are the 2 resources I found most useful:
Paul Shorts ebook is a comprehensive work on everything you wanted to know about RSS and blogging, and probably more.
http://NetProfitsToday.com/rss-paul-short/
Although it wont give you a how-to-RSS explanation, I also found Dr. Manis 41 ideas on how to profit using RSS feeds quite valuable.
http://NetProfitsToday.com/rss-drmani/
? Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All Rights Reserved.
Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peoples Stuff Online". To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?nathanoct/webvista2
About the Author
Rosalind Gardner is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world.In January 1997, Rosalind Gardner received her first web check and hasnt looked back since. Trading her career as an air traffic controller for full-time netpreneurship in early 2000, her various internet projects now entertain and inform millions of visitors annually.She offers this article with YOU in mind, knowing that if she can earn a good living online, YOU can too.