| RSS and How It Can Bring Your Site Traffic and Sales |
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| Written by Duran Inci | |
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So, what is RSS? (Really Simple Syndication) That must be one of the most often-asked questions we get from our clients. It’s very normal for individuals to dismiss an idea or “glaze over” when they hear a term such as “RSS” because they basically do not understand what it does. RSS is one of the many feed formats used on the web. A feed format is the way information is delivered to its recipient. It’s mainly used for frequently updated content such as blogs, news, podcasts and videos. The information could be just a summary or the fully detailed content. We know how much content there is on the web and it would be impossible to get all that content via RSS and read it. So there are ways to filter this content using RSS Readers and 3rd Party Web-Based and Desktop Applications. Let’s say I’m interested in Football and the scores in the NFL. I can go to the NFL site or any news site and subscribe to an RSS feed which then would bring that information daily (sometimes hourly) to my Desktop, Yahoo or Gmail. So, every time I turn on my computer or check my mails at Yahoo, I can see the scores. So, the information is filtered to what I want to see and then is delivered to me and displayed in the manner that I want .. PERFECT! I can hear your question; “What can it do for me?” Well, it can bring you a lot of targeted traffic. Let’s say that you have a website where you post NFL Scores as well as reviews about teams and players, photos and a blog where people comment on your blog posts. (And this example can be fit for any business or website, trust me) This would be an ideal example because you would have updated content every day on your site. Unless you setup an RSS Feed,there’s no way for you to distribute that content other than through people coming to your site (Google Search or Direct Entries) and seeing the changes you have made.. Once you setup an RSS feed and publish it, you provide a new avenue for people who are interested in your content (articles, reviews) to find you. Social Bookmarking and Search Engines would be the first to send you traffic since people would find and read your content. If they like your content, this is even better, because they will rate it well, which means more traffic for you. All types of media can be applied through RSS. At Optimum7, we need to sometimes explain to our clients over and over again the benefits of RSS but the question always comes down to results. No matter how much I speak about RSS or how many technical terms I waste, the business owner only cares about results. So, will RSS bring you more traffic, sales and conversions? ABSOLUTELY. The only pre-requisite of RSS Syndication is content. So … GOT CONTENT? |
