Really Simple Syndication
Simplified…
Really
This Saturday I am going to attempt to unravel the mystery that is RSS but, first I'd like to take a second and acknowledge the tragedy that happened this week at Virginia Tech. Some of my fondest memories come from my college years at Virginia Tech and my heart goes out to all the people affected by the tragedy.
There has been a lot of buzz over the last several years about RSS feeds and what they can do for you as a business. The problem with buzz is it doesn’t actually tell you how to do anything.
But, don’t stress, that’s what I’m here for - to give you the breakdown and show you how to actually use this stuff.
In today’s issue you’ll discover:
- What an RSS feed is
- Several different versions of RSS feeds
- How you can use these various feeds to generate buzz and web traffic
- Exactly how to start using RSS feeds immediately
I also wanted to take second a thank all of you who commented on my issue two weeks ago. The feedback was great and I'm happy that the article was useful. One great point that was made is that Wordpress and Blogger are not the only choices out there. There are hundreds of different solutions and I spoke a bit about the two I'm most familiar with but, there are plenty of choices that I haven't worked with personally that may work equally well or even better for your particular scenerio.
So what’s an RSS feed?
Most commonly known as Real Simple Syndication, RSS feeds are simply a must for the would-be web builder in today’s news crazy, give it to me a second before my competitor has it, world.
How would you like your site to link to Yahoo, Google, MSN, CNN, BBC and just about every periodical that has an online presence? How much would you pay for the SEO benefits alone?
Well, how does FREE sound? That’s RSS at its core.
Most people have no idea what an RSS feed is and more important how an RSS feed can generate traffic for your website.
I’m going start out by using this quote as an example of an RSS feed.
“I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”
– Terry Pratchett
Now that both sums up RSS feeds and more importantly is an example of an RSS feed.
Now hang in there for a minute while I explain what an RSS feed is by giving a very common use of it.
The quote above was written by Terry Pratchett, collected by a web site called www.quotationspage.com and then transmitted to Google via an RSS feed.
When you sign into your AOL, Yahoo, MSN, or more recently Google account you will see many different ever changing news and advertising clips.
In this case my home page is Google which has a quote of the day section. You have many different options ranging from the latest Sports Scores, stock quotes, breaking news stories and even last minute travel plans.
This particular section is titled “Quote of the Day” and it is an RSS feed from the web site www.quotationspage.com.
The process is simply this:
CNN, New York Times, ESPN or a similar periodical or news program will gather the stories they are currently working on and publishing.
They will then group all the stories together in one page and format that page in a particular standard way that can be read by a common reader.
In the computer world, standards are essential. I don’t mean standards as in taste or quality of product, but as in a standard way of presenting the material or protocol.
Adhering to a specific protocol allows computer programmers to write a program that everyone can use to read the like-formatted information.
A simple protocol you use almost everyday is surfing the web. If fact, you are currently demonstrating this by reading this article.
When you see the beginning to every website in the world it says: http.
HTTP, hyper-text transfer protocol, means that as long as we follow the rules we can "browse" these same formatted web pages with our reader or browser, like Internet Explorer or Firefox.
If a web site does not adhere to the protocol then it’s NO SOUP FOR YOU! And we can’t see the site or will have errors which cause it to have poor formatting. You’ll probably see the dreaded “Cannot Display this site” page.
RSS Feeds work the same way as your browser. You as the feed creator must adhere to a protocol when designing your feed so that other readers like Google or MSN will correctly read your information.
Several different versions of RSS feeds
You’ll find that RSS feeds have been used in several of the hottest trends on the web today. Most importantly podcasting.
I have an in-depth article on podcasting coming to you next but, in the mean time podcasting is a way to present mp3 audio to clients. The idea is that you can supply your client with an ever changing supply of audio or video to viewed on an mp3 or movie player, such as an iPod. Like the broadcasting of radio or television station but to your ipod, hence podasting.
One key concept that I harp on to all my clients is the idea of multiple ways to say the same thing. Sure it’s great to have a book on how to train a dog but, why not a website, an audio book, an instructional video, and other ways to deliver your product to the diverse population?
Well, that’s the idea of RSS feeds. Use them with other elements of your current marketing and they can be another way to attract a new client base.
At some point you have to also concede that web marketing is ever changing. You can’t just stick up a website, throw together a Pay Per Click campaign and expect the millions of people on the web to come streaming to your door.
You need to take advantage of both new and old technology and always be looking for the way to use it to accomplish your goals.
RSS feeds can help your overall site by providing a way for interested clients to be continually told about new products and developments for your company.
How does this help me?
Well, in the last few years and steadily growing, smart marketers have seen some real potential using RSS to stream their Blogs which in turn peddle their products.
Another Tool in the Tool box
to Generate Traffic and Usability
I think RSS feeds are best viewed as another tool a marketer can use.
It really doesn’t make sense to think of RSS feeds as a stand alone product. You need to first have content in order to have something to feed others. Now you don’t have to have a Blog to use an RSS feed but, it is one easy way to generate RSS feeds for you without having some programming experience or access to a programmer.
Why do you need a Blog? Well, you have to have some way to present the ever changing information you want to give your clients. Without a message to give there is no point in talking about how to deliver the message. Now this does not have to be a traditional Blog it can simply be a series of articles or even advertorials.
Your big win for an RSS feed is the community aspect it can potentially bring your website. For example if your Blog tells potential gardeners how to use your product to help grow a better garden, then a group of gardeners all get together and receive your RSS feed. Now you have a specific group of clients that can talk to their community of friends about your RSS feed and how it’s constantly giving them new ideas to improve their garden.
To me it all boils down to credibility and buzz.
Having an RSS feed implies that not only do you have something worth hearing but, you have something worth checking back on constantly.
It says HEY! You need me on your home page!
More importantly it’s a simple solution that allows people another option to view your content.
Most blog hosting companies provide RSS feeds as a standard feature of the blog. Blogger.com supplies you with a free account, free place to host your blog and a free generated RSS Feed. You’ll find this is not a unique offer, there are hundreds of places to have a blog and many work as good or better, depending on your needs and experience on the web. So if you currently have a blog or are planning to implement a blog, it would be foolish not to have an RSS feed.
All Right, Enough Jibba Jabber!
Show Me How!
Now if you are attempting to make a custom RSS feed be forewarned!
RSS or Real Simple Syndication is not that simple.
You must have some web programming ability and enough drive to read all the proper tutorials to integrate RSS feeds to your site.
So non-tech savvy programmers beware of the name simple because it ain’t that simple.
Now I'm going to walk you through the creation of a simple RSS feed for those who don't have one generated for them automically from their website's content managment system.
Here is a sample RSS feed file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<RSS version="2.0"><channel>
<title>The Total Package</title>
<description>If you're looking for ways to explode profits for your small or home-based business, you'll find today's most powerful direct marketing and direct response marketing strategies here! Whether you're a copywriter, entrepreneur, small business owner or marketing pro, our mission is to light a rocket under your Internet, direct mail and print ad promotions … to help you attract armies of new customers … and to help you multiply sales to each one of them!</description>
<link> http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/ </link><item>
<title>Zoom Past One Of The Copywriter's Biggest Challenges With This Tip…</title>
<description>Copywriters: Michel Fortin shows you how to easily beat procrastination problems and earn more money by getting more done.</description>
<link> http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/michel-fortin/zoom-past-one-of-the-
copywriters-biggest-challenges-with-this-tip.html </link>
</item><item>
<title>Introducing Web Marketing Heroes</title>
<description>This week the Web Marketing Advisor analyzes and dissects one of our member's red-hot health and fitness copy to see what makes it tick.</description>
<link> http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/daniel-levis/introducing-web-
marketing-heroes.html</link>
</item></channel>
</RSS>
Now looking at the above code. I have highlighted the parts that you would tailor to your own site. In the example above, there is one site description and two articles in your RSS feed you can add as many articles as you want.
Here are the components:
1. The definition and link to website:
<title>The Total Package</title>
<description>If you're looking for ways to explode profits for your small or home-based business, you'll find today's most powerful direct marketing and direct response marketing strategies here! Whether you're a copywriter, entrepreneur, small business owner or marketing pro, our mission is to light a rocket under your Internet, direct mail and print ad promotions … to help you attract armies of new customers … and to help you multiply sales to each one of them!</description>
<link> http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/ </link>In this case you'll want to replace all the highlighted information with information relevant to your website. In the RSS feed there should only be one description and link to your website.
2. A content item or article on your website:
<item>
<title>Zoom Past One Of The Copywriter's Biggest Challenges With This Tip…</title>
<description>Copywriters: Michel Fortin shows you how to easily beat procrastination problems and earn more money by getting more done.</description>
<link> http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/michel-fortin/zoom-past-one-
of-the-copywriters-biggest-challenges-with-this-tip.html </link>
</item>In this case you'll want to replace the information with one of the articles you want to be in your RSS feed. You can have as many items as you want.
Now once you've changed the information and made it tailored to your website you need to save them file as an xml file. For example, RSS.xml.
The last step is to upload the file to your website and then link to it. This step is completely dependent on what kind of system you use to upload files to your site.
Now you have an RSS feed but, there is one more step I would recommend to maximize the effectiveness of your newly created feed.
At this point take your newly created RSS feed or an RSS feed created by your content management system, and head over to www.feedburner.com. This is what we use and it is extremely simple to do. If you use a blog format to your website, there is probably already an xml file that is generated for you to use for your RSS feed. One thing you will need when setting up your feedburner account is a URL with you current feed. For example, our site has an RSS feed URL, http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/RSS.xml, that is then in turn used by feedburner to provide some nice tracking features such as the number of people who subscribe to your feed.
Feedburner is a great addition for your syndication and it is widely used by large publications such as CNN.
I hope this helps begin to unravel the mystery that is RSS and also point out the power that you can wield by setting up effective RSS feeds and trading them with your colleagues and associates.
It is no mystery that if you have more people linked to your site you have a better chance of the search engine crawlers finding you.
RSS feeds are one more way to establish this “community feel”. A true network of people provides power to your website.
Strength in numbers!
Share your RSS feeds with everyone and you can’t help but generate the ever elusive buzz for your site.
Please comment and let me know your thoughts!
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Editor, Working IT Out
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
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Comment by Imtiaz — April 21, 2007 @ 7:45 am
Thanks David!
You\’ve just blown the myth of RSS right out of the water.
Your explanation was sound and simple and made the whole concept realiseable for my projects.
Many thanks and best wishes.
Comment by David Dittman — April 21, 2007 @ 11:19 am
I\’m glad it helped,
Thank you for your comments!
Comment by Bob — April 21, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
Finally! I had given up on trying to understand RSS and how to make it work. You make it sound simple enough for me to do it now…
Thanks David
Comment by Mike Whims — April 22, 2007 @ 8:19 am
Finally I now understand RSS feeds and how I may create and apply them.Nice going!
Question: I am hearing some buzz about \\\”Apps on a plane\\\” and I don\\\’t know much about it. My buddy was at the \\\”Web 2.0 Expo\\\” in San Fran last week and mentioned it was one of the hot topics. What do you know about it?
Comment by David Dittman — April 22, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
Thank you for your comment Mike and I’m glad the article helped. As far as Apps on a plane is concerned I hadn’t heard of it until now. I did however Google it due to the interesting nature of the name… and it looks like a great idea. Apparently what this application allows you to do is work offline on a company shared database and then synchronize when you’re back online. I’m intrigued to know exactly how this differs from the way other popular databases handle offline files. Unfortunately, I know very little about the company, Etelos and it’s “Ecosystem” that it is developed for so I’ll need to do some diggin’. Thanks for the comment and I’ll let you know what I turn up! Anyone else who can help shed some light and give us some personal experience let us know.
Comment by LM Huby — April 23, 2007 @ 5:34 am
David, thanks so much for this entry. I\’ve been looking into RSS for several weeks now, and had given up trying to figure it out.
Your explanation - and example, especially - have demystified this valuable tool!
Comment by B X Reddington — April 25, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Way to go David Dittman. With the unmistakable clarity of the crack of a bat on a ball, you blasted the heck out of any mystery obscuring RSS feeds.
What beautiful brevity.
Home Run David!
Comment by annette — May 28, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Triggers in minding echo back orah whispered wisk past the pot ican catch u not the drifters move from spot to spote forget me nots remember me/my spy little i didhe really not know i wood look at it this weigh tz hard not to say eh in a day coe aksayso