RSS Feeds & Your Blog: Defined
Understanding what an RSS feed is and how it works.
Depending on the business and industry, blogs can be (and usually are) a brilliant idea for business owners. Regular posting keeps your site content fresh, which helps boost SEO. Well-written articles become a resource for your target audience. Your blog becomes a center-point of information which you can promote through e-newsletters and social media. Knowing how to properly leverage your business blog online can make it an effective online promotion tool. Utilizing an RSS feed is a really great tool you don’t want to do without!
RSS stands for “Rich Site Summary,” although it’s also said to mean “Really Simple Syndication.” An RSS feed on a blog basically takes all the information on the website, formats it in a streamlined way, and then “feeds” it to subscribers via a reader application or email. RSS feeds strip posts of the “fancy” formatting, simplifies the content, and then give it back to readers in an easy to digest format. The process works like this:
- You write an article and publish it on your blog.
- The post is added to your RSS feed.
- Anyone who has subscribed to your RSS feed will see the post in their feed reader (also known as a feed burner or aggregator).
Benefits for You:
- The biggest benefit you get from having an RSS feed on your blog is how easy it makes reaching your audience. RSS feeder applications (like Google Reader) collect a user’s favorite blogs all in one place, making it easy for them to stay current with the posts.
- RSS feeds will link back to your website, which will generate more traffic for you. If your articles include back-links to past articles you’ve written or other pages on your website, you’ll maximize this benefit.
- Using an RSS feed may also help search engines index your new content faster, and as we all know, fresh content is what search engines love.
Benefits for your subscribers:
- RSS feeds make following blogs and news sites significantly easier for subscribers. Instead of having to visit multiple websites to read the latest posts, readers only have to view their RSS feed reader immediately see the most recent posts from all the feeds they subscribe to.
- Another aspect of this ease is the ability for subscribers to stay up-to-date with the latest content published on the websites they follow. RSS burners typically indicate to the reader what’s new since the last time they read their feed.
- Following blogs through an RSS feed makes subscribing easy for people. It’s as easy the click of a button to subscribe, and the same for unsubscribing.
How to add an RSS feed to your blog:
If you use WordPress for your website or blog, most themes come already set up to incorporate an RSS feed with your blog. If you aren’t sure how to get the most out of your RSS feed, get in touch with us and we can help point you in the right direction.
RSS feeds are an easy way to make your blog more accessible to your audience. It’s just one more avenue you can take to make your content shareable and appealing.
