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Reachout Throughout ? RSS
RSS has been around for more than a decade but until recently "Rss Technology" started penetrating its roots deep inside the soil of the so-called E-world. Using this standard, web publishers provide updates, such as the latest news headlines, special announcements, press releases or weblog postings through their RSS content Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML vocabulary for describing metadata about web sites, ideal for news syndication. Originated by userland software in 1997 and used by Netscape to populate Netscape's My Netscape portal with external newsfeeds ("channels") RSS has taken on a life of its own and has become perhaps the most popular XML format today. Thousands of web sites today use RSS as a "what's new" mechanism to drive traffic their way. (Including the BBC, CNET, CNN, Eweek, Forbes, Motley Fool, Wired, Red Herring, Yahoo, MSN and many more?). As each day passes by, new websites are being launched and added to the internet bandwagon and in order to compete, webmasters & web publishers need to find different ways of producing themed-based websites. Highly focused articles are often sought by webmasters. Why? Because content on the web is still king! In order to attract search engines and site visitors, webmasters depend heavily on providing informative, creative and fresh content. If the web site content is rich, visitors will come. If the website content is updated regularly, visitors will return. When evaluating a website's traffic it is easy to see that the low cost of syndicated content can add-up considerably to a website's value. Many webmasters & web publishers are struggling to find fresh, innovative content while other savvy webmasters have realized the ability hidden within RSS and are adopting the technology at a maddening pace. By utilizing RSS, webmasters can tap through a variety of distinctive free content sources with very little effort. RSS truly is a webmaster's key to free content. With the help of RSS technology webmasters can also reach their potential and targeted customers directly, how this is done? Well?. typically RSS feeds contains "News Headlines" and content summaries of a particular product or service these content summaries contain just enough information without overwhelming the reader with superfluous details. If the reader is interested and wants additional information they can click on the item in the feed, accessing the website which contains additional details. RSS readers aggregate multiple feeds, making it easy for individuals to quickly scan information contained within each feed. Feeds are generally themed, allowing users to opt-in to feeds that are of their interest. One of the major benefits to RSS is that individuals opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply removes the feed from there RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a very short period of time. With the RSS webmasters & web publishers have the advantage to update their already existing feed, so that when ever they have something new to publish or offer all they have to do is update their already published feed and the message gets updated everywhere it's subscribed. No more worrying if your subscribers got your message or not. Thus, Rss gives you the opportunity in establishing strong relationships with your existing subscribers as well as helps in attracting new potential subscribers who are interested in what you offer. If you really want to make a difference then RSS is the perfect tool in reaching out to your subscribers or customers throughout Syed Ibrahim is a prominent internet strategist and also manages marketing for http://www.rapidfeeds.com Create, Edit, Publish & Track your RSS feed online just in three easy steps!! Sign Up For Free!!!
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RELATED ARTICLES
What Are RSS Feeds RSS Feeds. 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. 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. How to Build a Niche Site With a Blog Building niche sites is all the rage these days. 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. 13 Steps to Successful Blogging Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging. 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. Boost your Search Engine Rankings with an RSS Feed I'm here to teach you about how RSS Feeds can boost traffic for your website. You may have heard of it, but I guarantee you are not harnessing the full power of the tool. RSS Feeds are very hot, and the marketing pro's are getting their websites listed in Google within 2 to 3 days. Blogging Your Way To Success Part 4 (Continued from Blogging Your Way To Success Part 3) The Holy Grail that Online Advertisers, Merchants, Publishers, and Shoppers have been Looking for! For Online Publishers/RSS Feeds users - RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a popular way for online users/publishers to pull news and information from across the web. RSS allows web sites to publish real time content to online users/shoppers easily and the trend is growing. Some site have taken advantage of this technology and created RSS/XML feeds using products data feeds from top online merchants/advertisers. Article Syndication - A New Vehicle for King Content Creating Content Steps To Creating and Promoting RSS Feeds RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses now have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do. You have finally made the decision that you have to have one. Where do you start? Could There Be A New Way Of hearing The News Stories We Feel Are Relevant In Our Lives? Mainstream media has become a single-minded authority on how we should perceive life. Theirs is a negative perspective. Could there be a new way of hearing the stories we feel are relevant in our lives? Are You Thinking of Republishing RSS Feeds? There is lively debate about the republishing of RSS feeds on other sites. The argument surrounds the use of RSS feeds from the feed publisher being used in an unfair manner. This includes republishing the entire articles and not displaying sufficient credit to the original source. Before we go into the details you may want to brush up on your understanding of RSS. This will help you fully appreciate and fully understand the issues involved. I am glad this conversation is happening now as it needs to be made clear what fair use of RSS feeds actually means. There may be webmasters who are republishing RSS feeds in all innocence at the moment not realising the furore that is going on around them with regards to their republishing activities. I would like to help clear up any misunderstandings that surround RSS republishing. Being an RSS publisher myself who is considering republishing other authors RSS feeds I would like to make sure I am not treading on any toes. I am basing the following RSS republishing etiquette on the good practice that Rok Hrastnik has enthused. If you wish to republish an RSS feed then you should first consult the publisher with your intentions. This would be an email to the author stating how you wish to reuse their feed and the page or pages the feed will be republished on and the attributions you will make. You will need to clarify some points. If the authors feed contains ads then will they be republished? Will you be monetizing the authors work by placing ads on your republished page? 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Though people had been 'at it' long before the term blog was coined; it has gained currency as an effective medium of communicating over the Internet only recently. The introduction of automated published software like "Blogger" at www.blogger.com has been instrumental in blogging success. A blog or a weblog' is conceptually similar to a website and is accessible to anyone on the Internet. Top 10 Reasons to Start Blogging "What's blogging?" you ask. Blogging: A Profit Making Internet Option Blogging is a relatively new form of communication, closely related to the newsletters of days long past. Your thoughts, ideas, and activities are posted for the world (or a chosen few) to view, and if you choose to include the option, leave a comment. By creating a Blog and adding to it every day or relatively often, you create in your reader a desire to see "what was said next". They will return to read what you post next. Particularly, if what you posted the first time is interesting, valuable information, presented in a manner that is fun to read. A few ideas to get you off and running with your informational Blog, might include: travel, a new baby, planning your wedding, building a new business, working with your clients, developing a new product, counting your blessings, or ideas you are interested in sharing. Blog Construction Blogs like all forms of writing are an art form that takes knowledge and practice to do well.
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