People have information to share. Wonderful and
insightful knowledge about business and changing industries. You are experts. They are smart, alert, and
creative when dealing with change. With RSS they can share that
knowledge with the world 24/7. RSS allows them to become the information
source and the authority of your profession, virtually distributing it
to the desktop of the very people they want to reach.
How many professionals know why it has become so popular?
In the past year “RSS Feed” has become a very popular buzz word in
Internet marketing. Questions like “What is RSS?” and “Why do I need
RSS?” are commonly heard at industry conferences and coffee shops
around the world.
What is RSS?
Really – Simple – Syndication.
RSS may be defined as being simple, yet the concept and application
of RSS is anything but simple. An RSS feed at the most basic concept
level collects content on the Web and categorizes it into a simple
structure so that another person can easily download the content and be
notified of when it is updated.
The technology can be used for many purposes:
– Product information
– Opinion and observation articles
– Business and professional tips
– Travel logs
– Press releases
– Personal and professional journals
As a business owner, RSS gives you many advantages in distributing
your information online and promoting it to the right demographic.
Easier Distribution: RSS doesn’t have the many
pitfalls of mail or e-mail marketing. There are no permission lists or
databases to maintain. Everyone subscribes by choice and has complete
control over the distribution of your information to them.
Control of Information: RSS supports the ability of
teaser paragraphs and introductory information. You don’t need to send
out everything through RSS- which allows you to include links to other
information, lead generation forms, and industry partner information
that is hard to squeeze into one communication.
“Pull” or demand marketing, rather than PUSH:
Subscribers are in complete control. They don’t endlessly worry at six
o’clock that they are going to get a telemarketing call interrupting
personal time. If they choose- they can get more information or simply
cancel the subscription. Giving control of this process increases the
quality of distribution channel and strengthens the relationship.
Link-building, traffic, and promotion: everyone
wants more traffic and eyes viewing their site information. By
including links within articles going out on RSS feeds, a percentage of
readers will be pulled back to the main site and source of the
information. This means that one newsletter distributed via RSS could
result in a reader flipping through ten pages of your site: which means
more education, better branding, and a possibility of having a new
client.
Up-to-date content: One of the main reasons that
RSS (which is supported by blogs, community sites, and other social
media) has gained popularity is that users have learned that 95% of the
content is recent information. Rather than read about last weeks news,
RSS subscribers are reading today’s news. If you compared it- it is
just like have the nightly news on your desktop, laptop, or mobile
phone 24 / 7 on demand.
Search Engine Marketing with RSS
Before you run out and get a RSS feed setup on your site, understand
a critical item in having one. The words you choose for your RSS feed
name, description, and source files are very important.
If you are a real estate broker, you probably know that having a
domain for your site such as “newyorkrealestate.com” will drive traffic
to a New York real estate office. The same is true of RSS feeds.
When naming the file structure of your RSS feed-don’t choose
something like “tomsdailynewsartcles,” but choose a detailed three to
four keyword phrase for your feed. It will help you rank for those key
phrases. If you have several areas of content, more strategic uses of
search marketing are possible by using multiple RSS feeds for your
search marketing goals.
Getting People to Subscribe to a Feed
Feeds should be prominently displayed on your site with a call to
action to subscribe. Users can use many different methods to read your
feed, including built-in services in an Internet browser, e-mail
application, or mobile phone. As your audience subscribes to the
various RSS feeds on your site, those subscribers help add to the
overall recognition and strength of how your site produces natural,
organic traffic through multiple sources. An important call to action
on any site, newsletter, or feed is to encourage current readers to
share the information and articles with like-minded friends and
associates.
Closing questions:
- How do you see RSS affecting your industry?
- What percentage ofyour peers know anything about RSS?
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