Marketing and promoting your RSS feeds
The buzz about RSS is growing everyday. This is largely due to RSS now being
a proven technology for syndicating content and for
increasing the brand value of your web site. The first
step toward harnessing the full potential of this technology
is to add RSS feeds to your web site. The next logical
step is to promote them. This article guides you through
the steps to promote your RSS feed so that your web
site becomes another RSS success story.
- Validating
your RSS feed Once you’ve made
your RSS feed, you should next validate it. Validation
is nothing but checking whether your RSS feeds conform
to the RSS format standard. It is important because
RSS is XML based, which is very strict with reference
to coding. You need to determine that your RSS file
has the correct tags and syntax to be read by RSS readers.
You can use free online tools, like the one available
at http://www.feedvalidator.com,
which recognize coding and syntax errors and pinpoint
their location.
- Create a
web page for displaying your RSS feeds Once your RSS feed is
validated you add it to your web site. Creating a separate
web page for displaying RSS feeds is a common web practice.
Most web sites use icons
like, 
, 
and 
on
their homepages to advertise RSS feeds. You link these
icons to the web page where you’ve listed your
RSS feeds. Your site visitors can simply click on these
icons or text links to view your RSS links.
Although many Internet
users know what RSS is, a large majority still needs
to be educated. You can do this by adding a few words
about RSS, how to use it and its benefits to the user.
- Listing
your RSS feeds in nice directories
Now that you have your
RSS feeds, you need to make your potential viewers aware
of them. This can be done by submitting the RSS web
page to various RSS directories like http://www.syndic8.com/ and http://www.NewsIsFree.com which displays a list of RSS feeds by category.
You can take the easy
route and use an RSS submission tool which submits your
feeds to all RSS directories. An RSS submission tool
allows you to easily maintain high visibility and exposure
for your RSS content. You can learn more about an automatic
submission tool through the following link: http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html
- Distributing
your special RSS Reader
The last mile is always
the toughest. You have valid RSS feeds, users know you
have them, but you still need to convince them to add
your feeds to their RSS reader. You also need to convince
existing viewers to retain your feeds in their readers.
Most web sites with RSS feeds add a link to download
an RSS reader on the page where they have listed their
RSS feeds. There is a major element of uncertainty,
here, in that you hope your visitors add the feeds you’re
recommending to the downloaded RSS reader.
With a more proactive
approach, you can do much better by promoting your feeds within a FREE
RSS reader. The unique Active
Web Reader Customizer allows you to prepare a special
version of Active Web Reader,
containing your RSS feeds pre-loaded. You can add a
link to download the popular and FREE Active Web Reader
on the web page where you list your RSS feeds. The user
then simply downloads the Active Web Reader with your
pre-loaded RSS feeds in place, increasing the brand
value of your site and saving you effort in promoting
your RSS content.
- Updating
content regularly
Keeping RSS feeds updated
is as important as keeping your web site updated. This
is because RSS is meant to deliver content quickly and
directly to the on-line reader. If you don’t update
your feeds regularly then your viewers have no reason
to keep your feeds in their readers. Just like your
web site, if you want to keep people coming back, you
have to keep it fresh with new information.