| 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 today 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?
Steps to Creating an RSS feed
1. Build a Feed
There are a number of desktop and web applications
available that make feed creation easy. I would
encourage anyone creating a feed to use one. Though
not overly complicated, hand-coding an RSS feed
can become a bit confusing and time-consuming.
Most desktop software applications for building
a feed include a wizard and contact-sensitive
help, simplifying the process of creating a feed.
Following a few simple steps in a wizard generally
will produce an RSS feed in just a few minutes.
Publishers control what information is syndicated
in the RSS feed, so ultimately it is the publisher's
decision as to whether to include teaser copy
or full articles. Consider what you are trying
to accomplish and who your target audience is
when building the feed.
Software
to Build a Feed
Tutorial
for Creating Feed by Hand using XML
2. Transfer the Feed
Onto Your Server
Once you have constructed an RSS feed you will
need to transfer the feed to your server. This
can be done using a standard FTP client (if it
is not built into the feed creation software).
The feed is usually placed in the domain's root
directory like this: http://www.mydomain.com/nameoffeed.xml
, but as long as you know where it is it doesn't
really matter.
3. Display the Feed
on Your Website Using a Graphic of Some Sort
In order to signal to website visitors that an
RSS feed containing content related to the website
is available, include a colorful graphic on the
website. It has become a standard that nearly
all websites that have RSS feeds available use
colorful graphics such as flags as indicators
that RSS feeds are available for specific content.
The flags were initially bright orange rectangles
but as the popularity has grown, webmasters have
bent the rules a bit. NotePage has made a frëe
online RSS graphic tool available that allows
users to quickly customize buttons by selecting
the text on the button and the color scheme of
the button. Once the color and text is entered,
a custom graphic is instantly created. Webmasters
can easily match the style of the RSS button to
a website's theme. Graphics experience is not
required. Simply select alternative colors and
insert text to personalize RSS feed graphics.
Use the RSS
graphics tool or choose ready made graphics
from RSS-Specifications.com.
4. Include Information
in the HTML of the Web Page So RSS Readers Auto-Detect
Your Feed
After publishing an RSS feed it is important to
let visitors know that the feed exists. Aggregators
will automatically detect RSS on a website if
you add a small bit of code in the header field
of an HTML page.
[link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"
title="RSS" href="http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml"]
Be sure to replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml
with the URL to the RSS feed and replace the brackets
with "<" less than and ">"
greater than symbols.
5. Display the Feed's
Content on a Website
Contents contained in an RSS feed can be added
to a website, providing site visitors an alternative
method for viewing the content. The information
will also help increase search engine interest.
Displaying the feed as HTML can be accomplished.
Providing fresh content on a regular basis will
encourage site visitors return.
Tutorial
for Displaying Feeds
6. Submit the Feed
to RSS Directories and Search Engines
As a rapidly increasing number of content sources,
new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution
channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders
and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the
ability to maintain high exposure and visibility
is gradually shifted from complete attention to
major search engines and content optimization
techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed
directories and search tools.
In order to increase exposure of an RSS feed
it should be submitted to RSS search engines and
directories. This can be done manually. Just as
you would submit the URL of a website or web page
to a search engine you will need to submit the
link of the actual feed located on your website
to the RSS directories. There is a large list
of RSS directories at RSS-Specifications.com.
If you prefer to automate the submission process
try RSS
Submit. An evaluation version is available.
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