It is quite a common thing now for a website that you go and visit to have a RSS feed. It is not something new because it has been around for a few years now. It has been used by many website owners for promoting their site for some time now. If you are still unaware about the benefits that it can bring and what it can do for you then you are missing out on a lot.
What Are RSS Feeds?
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary; it is also labelled as a Really Simple Syndication because of the amazingly simple means by which it can publish content. It is used for publishing content that is updated regularly like blogs, news and even video and audio content. The RSS feed is used so that this content can be published in a standardized way and with the general information about the authorship of the content included.
What is the Benefit of RSS Feeds?
An RSS feed makes it easy for a website owner to syndicate his content. It is made simpler since it is made automatic. Since the file becomes standardized, it can be viewed by different programs without having to make any changes to it. For the website viewers and users, these feeds can be beneficial because they can get updates from the favourite bloggers and websites right away.
A user can get the updates simply by clicking on a feed icon that he would be able to see on the browser that he is using. That would start the process so that he would be able to get updates from it right away. Once that starts, the reader would then check for updated work and new content from the site that the user has subscribed to and when that happens the user will be able to get regular updates then from the site without having to do anything else.
Does your website need an RSS feed
Normally, the answer here should be yes. An ideal site regardless of what niche it is promoting should be updated regularly with fresh content. Naturally you want people to keep coming back to your site. The best way to do that is for them to just sign up to your RSS feed. That way, they will automatically get notifications to visit your site whenever you publish something new on it. You don’t have to promote all content that you create separately.
By having an RSS feed, you would have a very powerful tool for sharing content to your followers and to some new users of your site. If you are not using it yet then you are missing out on a lot if you have been creating a lot of new content. It is not enough that you come up with some new content all of the time. You must have a means of distributing and sharing that content to as many people as you can at the same time.
Setting up an RSS Feed
The amazing thing is that setting up an RSS feed is an easy process that requires no special technical knowhow or skill. With just a basic understanding of how the Web works, you could go out and setup an RSS feed with ease. Many publishing systems on the internet have a system for setting up a feed, but if your site does not have then you can use a different method. You can use Feedburner for example.
How to setup an RSS feed at Feedburner
Here are the steps that you have to follow in order to setup an RSS feed at Feedburner:
- The first thing that you have to do is to go to their website which is FeedBurner.com. Once you are on the site, the next step for you is to sign up using your Google account. If you do not have a Google account yet, then go ahead and create one first. There is no charge for that.
- Once you have signed up, you would see a space in the middle part of the website, you would where it says, “Burn a feed right this instant.” There is a box directly below that.
- You need to put in your website inside the box and then click on the option that says next.
- You will be then given an option to customize the title for your RSS feed as well as the feed address.
- You can then click on the next button and then you can finish the setting up of your RSS feed.
That was a pretty simple and straightforward method of setting up your RSS feed and the good news is that there are other sites that is just as easy to use. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and ahead and use this tool now to promote your site.
RSS or Rich Site Summary is a way of providing regular updates concerning web content. It is a way for website owners to provide their followers and readers with the latest updates that they have for the websites. Websites that have news formats and other regularly updated contents syndicate what they publish through RSS.
The process of syndication is greatly simplified with the use of RSS feeds. Once you have setup an RSS feed for your website content, all that a follower would have to do is to subscribe to the content and that would be it. There would be nothing to do on your part except for you to provide the new content and they would be getting it.
Benefits of Using RSS Feed
The use of an RSS feed is beneficial to the follower of a site because they can get regular updates that they need without having to browse through the Web. If they are interested from the kind of news provided by a certain website they would get it right away. It would be similar to subscribing to a magazine, only the content would be available right away once it gets published. This is better than just having to sign up for a newsletter because when you sign up for a newsletter you would have to provide your email. That might compromise your privacy in some ways.
For the website owner, it is a great convenience as well. It is an excellent way of promoting new content that he has created. The best thing about it is that he doesn’t really have to lift a finger once it has been setup. All that has to be done is to create new content and have it published online.
All that the user needs is to have a news aggregator or a new feeder in order to get the latest published content and then to read those. There are numerous aggregators that are available based on the kind of operating system that you have. Once you have the aggregator all that you have to do is to find the websites that you would like to subscribe to.
Examples of sites with RSS feeds
The good news is that there are more sites using RSS feeds now. These sites are not just the small fry websites but really big ones. One good example of a large website that uses RSS feeds is Yahoo News.
You can get updated now with the sites that you want using RSS feeds.
You have probably heard of RSS feeds but you might still be unaware of why it is so beneficial. If you are still at a loss as to what an RSS feed is and why it can be good for you or your website, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities. As a user and follower of certain sites, RSS feeds can keep you updated about your favourite blog or site.
Advantages of RSS Feeds
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, but some users have dubbed it as Really Simple Syndication because that is the main thing that it does. Syndication is the spreading of content to different users everywhere. By using it newly published content would be made readily available to those who have subscribed to the feeds.
Here are just some of the advantages that one can derive from using RSS feeds:
- It provides updates from websites as soon as they are published. It does not matter what kind of content it is. It can be music, news, weather bulletins, articles and videos. As long as a person is subscribed to an RSS feed then one can get it.
- Users have the ability to choose the sites that they can subscribe to. They are the ones that pick the sites and they also have the ability to unsubscribe to a website if they feel like it. That is a power of choice that did not exist before.
- It can save time for the user. Since they can get exactly the sort of content that they want from the RSS feeds then they would have to spend less time in browsing around which wastes a lot of time. This is especially important if the information that they are looking for is vital.
- We have mentioned before that the user has the ability to unsubscribe to a feed. There is more to that. In some instances, unsubscribing to something over the internet has been made difficult and complicated. Sometimes it is even impossible to do so but with an RSS feed once you unsubscribe, that would be the end of getting updates from the site.
- It can be used and in fact is being used as a powerful marketing tool today. With the regular updates that you can create for your site, you would be able to promote your site and push whatever product or service that you are selling quite effectively.
