Increase Website Visibility Using RSS
Author: Rob Emmerson
The interaction of online publishers and readers can be streamlined using RSS. The increasing popularity of RSS has led to webmasters delivering their content in new and creative ways.
Usually a headline and summary are included in the RSS feed. The summary of the content contains enough information get the attention and interest of the reader without overwhelming them. By clicking on a link in the feed a reader can quickly visit the website for more information and all the details.
Multiple feeds are combined into an RSS reader. This helps make it easy to quickly look at the information from multiple sources. Usually feeds follow a theme, so readers can subscribe to the feed that interest them.
Individuals can opt-in to specific feeds of interest, this is one of the biggest benefits of RSS. This gives total control of what information is received to the user. If the quality of a feed goes down, or they simply are no longer interested, a user could just remove the feed from the RSS reader. There is no subscribing or un-subscribing to deal with, when the feed is removed no further information is received from that feed. An RSS reader compiles the information from many providers into one spot. Without having to view many different locations or emails, the user can easily view many different content streams.
Publishers will find RSS to be a great tool also. Publishers are freed from having to maintain list, or monitor privacy policies, spam rules and age guidelines. At the same time, it gives publishers the ability to reach a highly targeted audience.
Publishers can use RSS to deliver keyword rich, themed content. This will help establish trust and build the publishers reputation with new and established customers.
Here are some of things that can be delivered using RSS:
Blogs, most blogs have a RSS feed. The blog post is broadcast in summary as a feed item. This makes it easy for readers to scan posts for individual items of interest.
Articles, articles are often used in RSS feeds and sent to subscribers to inform them of new content. Generally, the feed consists of the article title and a brief summary or introduction of the article. RSS users can then decide to follow the link to the complete article.
Forum Feed, users can get updated posts through a RSS feed with some forums. Generally the latest topic of discussion is shown in the feed. If users are interested in posting replies, or reading more, they can simply click to go directly to the forum discussion. When the discussion continues the RSS feed brings the latest updates to the reader.
Club Calendars, many schools, groups and clubs use RSS to publish upcoming events. The feed used to publicize these events also notify the community.
Retail Sale or Special Feed. Both online and traditional stores have started using RSS feeds to deliver news of special offers and sales to customers. Some marketers are allowing users to customize their feed using keywords that the user chooses.
The usefulness of RSS is growing daily, so many industries have started to adapt RSS to get their message out. RSS is being used to reach a varitey of audiences to market, promote or communicate a message. Many organizations have used RSS to reach new audiences and customers, due to its ease of use and userfriendly make up. RSS is fast becoming the communication vehicle for many businesses and with the increase of popularity will come ever more creative uses for this communication vehicle.
