RSS Brings The News To You
I was just watching CNN and they were running a story on how many websites were losing major chunks of traffic. Sites like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, along with Fox and CNN are losing traffic. They are asking why, but the answer is right in front of them.
People no longer need to visit those sites. Everything you need to know comes to you via RSS right on your Google or Yahoo home page. A few years ago I discovered that My Yahoo allowed me to insert content from just about anyplace that had a feed. I didn’t know what a feed really was, but went ahead and created my first Blogger blog. It was very cool to see my words right there on my Yahoo home page. That blog about hard drive recovery is now syndicated worldwide and has hundreds of subscribers.
So if you are not on the RSS bandwagon, you better jump on, or you will be left behind. By easily allowing your sites’ visitors to subscribe to your news, you are going to be in constant communication with your audience. It is true, your site’s traffic will suffer, but by placing ads in your feed, you can still turn a profit if that is your business model.
The fact is sites like Bloglines, News Gator and Technorati have extreme page rank which means Google feels they are authorities on just about every subject. By planting your feeds, and submitting to directories you can reach an audience that just isn’t using search engines the way they used to. Why else would Google buy FeedBurner and start adding news and blog results in the SERP’s? Google’s implementation of Universal search is just a beta test of how it is going to integrate feeds into natural searches.
As a user, RSS has eliminated around 75% of my search activity. I scanned my history for the last 4 weeks and was shocked to see how few websites I visited. I live in Florida so I am keeping an eye on Hurricane Dean, but you know what, I never leave my iGoogle page. Everything I need is brought to me through RSS.
As a business man and a person responsible for the livelihoods of hundreds of families, I need to stay on top of the way people use the Internet, to better prepare my clients. You see, all my clients rely on the Internet to survive, and I am their Internet Presence Manager, so that makes me responsible for their employees as well as for myself. For those of you who are like me, I suggest you track your Internet usage, how you search and shop online. To be able to help your clients, you need to understand how visitors actually use the Web.
RSS truly brings the news and the world to you!
Related Posts:
RSS Overview
RSS Syndication Services
RSS to Email
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RSS To Email Services Update
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about FeedBlitz as being the best rss to email service that I had found to date. I recently discovered that FeedBurner had upgraded their RSS to Email service. Find out more about RSS Syndication Services – FeedBurner to see my original post about FeedBurner.
I had used FeedBurner’s rss to email service in the past and it wasn’t all that great. I suppose that was one of the first things Google upgraded when they took over since the service is very good now. I have been testing it on my wife’s Homes Advisory Real Estate Portal WordPress install, and it works great.
Why RSS to Email is So Important
Not everyone is up to speed on what RSS is. In my original post about FeedBlitz RSS to Email I explained the nuts and bolts of how to best exploit and use RSS to Email. The only difference is that you can now go to the “publicize” section of FeedBurner and activate the email subscription service.
The best reason to do this is to have all your subscribers stats under one roof. There is a definite correlation to RSS subscribers and rankings such as Technorati authority. In fact with Google’s purchase of FeedBurner, you have to think that it will play into the natural SERP’s sooner rather than later.
I have gotten so many requests for more information on how to use FeedBurner that I am working on an instructional video now that will be released later in the week… so stay tuned.
In the meantime if you have any questions about RSS to email, please leave a comment in this post.
RSS News
Syndication Through Email: Using FeedBlitz RSS to E-Mail Services
RSS Syndication services that allow users to receive email updates of your feed are a powerful means to communicate with your readers. There are quite a few RSS to email services out there, and most have a free service level. The question is which one to use, and why? Well, I am here to tell you! I have tried most of the major players in RSS to Email and have chosen FeedBlitz as my personal favorite.
Why To Use RSS Email Services To Promote Your Feed
Before I get into the nitty gritty of why I chose FeedBlitz over the other email syndication services, lets take a moment to talk about why you would want to have your RSS feed emailed at all. First of all not everyone has embraced RSS, there are still quite a few people who don’t know what it is, let alone how to use it. By having an easy to understand message on your blog that promotes your feed as well as offers subscription through email, you can capture that audience unsure of how to use the RSS chicklets and other RSS identifiers.
Since I use WordPress and to a certain extent, Blogger for my personal, business and clients blogs, I will go into detail about the plugins that exist for WordPress. I don’t recommend Blogger for a serious blog, I only use it when a client doesn’t have control over their server. I also still have 2 blogs over there that can’t be moved since Blogger will only transfer to a domain, not a sub folder of a domain.
Okay for WordPress the tool to use is the plugin What Would Seth Godin Do by Richard Miller. THis puts a nice little box either at the top or bottom of every post that prompts users to subscribe to the feed. It is easily modified to incorporate the FeedBlitz info into it. Below is the code used to show both my FeedBurner feed and the FeedBlitz signup page:
<p style=’border:thin dotted black; padding:3mm;’>If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my <a href=’http://feeds.feedburner.com/GetFoundNowInternetMarketing’>RSS feed</a>. Thanks for visiting!<br><br>If you would prefer to receive updates of this blog through your email, <a href=”http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=181069″>click here to subscribe to email updates.</a></p>
The result is a cool box at the bottom of my posts. You can opt to have it at the top, as well as use cookies to only show the box for the first 3 times someone visits your site. This is done by cookies, but I chose to have it show all the time at the bottom of the post since so many of us block cookies, and I really don’t think it is obtrusive. Here is a screen shot:
Since I have installed this plugin on my sites and all of my clients sites, our subscription rates have tripled!
FeedBlitz has multiple ways to insert their code into any type of system that you might use. They also have a sign up form that you can install right on your site. When a user hits the submit button they are sent to the FeedBlitz page that finalizes the sign up procedure. They will receive an email confirmation and that is it! The service is 100% free and will email your latest posts every night.
FeedBlitz also has premium services. For a few dollars a month you can upgrade to a Turbo edition that allows you to email our your posts on demand. They also have a pro version for $10.00 a month that allows you to customize the email your subscribers get with your logo, as well as customizing the sign up page.
Finally FeedBlitz just started a newsletter service. For a small fee you can turn your email RSS feed into a customizable newsletter. This is extremely useful for blogs that are part of a static site. You can promote your blog feed on every page of your main site. No matter which service you choose, the free or paid versions are a very powerful way to reach your subscribers.
RSS Syndication Services And Directories You Should Be Using: FeedBurner
RSS syndication is much more than a little orange icon on your blog. Sure social network marketing systems like WordPress pretty much handle everything you need as far as RSS goes, but only at the most basic level. To compete in tight markets and increase both your visibility and market share, you must utilize more advanced RSS features than what comes out of the box with WordPress. This article will be the first of a few that will outline the more important tools and services that can help give your site an edge over your competition.
RSS Management And Distribution Service FeedBurner
In my post RSS Real Simple Syndication Explained I told you about the RSS services that I use to great effect. Here I am going to go into greater detail about FeedBurner as well as sharing with you the results of multiple tests I performed to see just how much benefit is derived from “burning your feed”.
FeedBurner – once looked at as the finest RSS distribution network, FeedBurner has been propelled into the stratosphere since its acquisition by Google for 100 million big ones. FeedBurner was started with 1 million in capital in 2004. They got another 9 million in funding in 2005, built up their services and subscribers and turned a 90 million profit two years later. Man I love the Internet!
Six months ago I ran a demo on two different blogs. The first I manually submitted the RSS 2.0 feeds to directories and utilized the Google Sitemap Plugin for WordPress by Arne Brachhold along with pingomatic to keep the major search engines and directories up to date with the blog. I had focused this blog on 10 specific keyword phrases.
The second blog also had 10 specific keyword sets and a very similar visibility index. In other words there was nearly the same amount of SERP results for both keyword sets. I submitted the feed with the default location within WordPress, i.e. domain.com/blog/feed. The second blog relied solely on FeedBurner as its means of feed management and updating. It also used pingomatic, but only the stock RPC service that is within WordPress.
After 2 months it was clear that the FeedBurner site had not only better placement, but more traffic outside of search engines. At this point I was convinced that there was no downside to having an outside domain control the RSS feed. In fact the FeedBurner page that was my RSS feed had equal Page Rank to my blog home page when PR was first issued.
The other site had equal Page Rank, but I expected that since both sites had equal inbound links. Even if Google hadn’t purchased FeedBurner, I would still be using it to manage all my RSS feeds based upon this study.
So what is FeedBurner and how can it help you? The first thing that attracted me to FeedBurner was the analytics. If you read my blog you know that I feel website analytics is one of the most important aspects of website management. FeedBurner has very complete analytics that tells you all about your subscribers. I knew that they had a great network since so many blogs I read used them to manage their feeds. After setting up an account I started “burning” feeds. Burning is their term for the services they provide which include publicizing your content and making it easier for people to subscribe to it. Another great aspect is the ability to optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be read by subscribers wherever they are.
I can’t stress enough how important the optimization aspect of FeedBurner is. If you have ever submitted your feeds to directories, the first thing you will find is not every directory complies to RSS 2.0 or Atom. Some don’t show the description properly, or say you don’t have a description and don’t accept the feed. I found this to be a problem on many real estate RSS directories that didn’t understand the WordPress feed, even though it is in the proper XML format.
FeedBurner eliminates all those formatting issues and sends out your feed the same way to everybody regardless of how they use the feed. We have already talked about their analytics so finally they have an advertising network that allows you to make some money through your feed. I suspect that this is why Google bought FeedBurner. Obviously AdWords will be their manager for the RSS feed ads.
The bottom line here is if you weren’t using FeedBurner to manage your RSS, you should. Now more than ever FeedBurner is a powerful ally in the Social Network Marketing arena.
RSS Real Simple Syndication Overview
By now everyone has seen the RSS symbol and even the little add to Yahoo and Google on every blog and more and more websites. What is RSS, how does it work, why should I care? These are all valid questions, and I’m here to give you the answer. Below are some of the typical icons that you will see that relate to RSS syndication:
RSS Syndication Explained
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, and it surely is simple. Just about every blogging system that exists has RSS built into it. I have also heard that RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. In fact when you type “what is RSS” into Google, the #1 site is a one page wonder that calls it Rich Site Summary, but I haven’t heard anyone else call it that so we will stick with the Real Simple Syndication definition.
Ok so what is RSS? In tech speak it is a type of XML code that comes in 3 or 4 different languages such as Atom, RSS 2, etc. The type isn’t that relevant until you get to the point where you are actively promoting your own feed. If I had to choose I would stick with Atom since it is understood by the majority of readers and is the flavor of choice with Google Base.
Again most blogging systems put some code in the header of your site with meta information that tells RSS readers and other interested programs where your feeds are and what type they are. There are also RSS services that help you help yourself, by understanding your subscribers. A subscriber is a person that has either added your feed to their Yahoo, MSN, or Google homepage, bookmarked your blog feed in their browser or RSS feed reader, or if you are like me signed up to receive email updates to your site.
I personally use FeedBurner to manage all my feeds, It is free and easy to use. Plus they are a big believer in analytics and give you a quick overview of how many subscribers you have and how they are subscribing. Another company FeedBlitz allows your site visitors to subscribe to your feed via email. Since I am a WordPress guy I use a cool plugin called “What Would Seth Godin Do” written by Richard Miller. Get the plugin from Richard K Miller dot cooooooooom. What it does is add a little box either at the beginning or end of every post that prompts users to subscribe to your feed. It has an easy to customize plugin manager page that allows you to also throw in the FeedBlitz code for email subscription. Since I added the plugin a ton of subscribers signed up for email updates to my blog.
Before I move on FeedBlitz is free, but for a mere $14.00 a month you can update how your email is sent and even customize the template. I upgraded mine and I plan on using it as a newsletter. Since there are still a bunch of people who aren’t sure what RSS is or how to use it, calling it a newsletter is a great way to promote your site’s feed!
My next article on RSS will go into the nitty gritty of feed promotion as well as sharing with you the tools that I use to get the most out of RSS.