In my last post I bemoan our publishers not yet using RSS. To make this criticism a wee bit more constructive, here are a few guides to the use of RSS for syndication of new titles for our beloved book providers.
Yahoo! Publisher's Guide to RSS – send your feeds to Yahoo! and widen your client base.
Great articles from RSS Specification:
"5 Reasons Why Your Site Needs to Publish a News Feed"
Reason #1: More free traffic to your site
Reason #2: It’s a hands-off way to update your audience
Reason #3: Get visitors to click through to your site whenever you update
Reason #4: Recycle old content.
Reason #5: Its so easy it’s crazy not to do it.
"Steps to Create & Promote RSS Feeds"
and lots more under RSS Articles
To answer to "5 Reasons Why Your Site Needs to Publish a News Feed" I would say:
"5 Reasons Why You Should Let People Syndicate Your Feeds On Their Site"
Reason #1: Increase visibility and exposure of your content
Reason #2: More free traffic to your site
Reason #3: Optimize your search engine positionning and ranking
Reason #4: Generate revenue with your content
Reason #5: Its so easy it’s crazy not to do it :)
For more details about content syndication and monetization you can visit http://www.stepwebz.com. About.com use them to let webmasters and bloggers publish the About.com feeds on their own site or blog.
Thanks for letting us know about your service, Rodolp S. A nice complementary list.
It is a bit sobering to read the RSS for Marketers note and find that the principal reason in the author's mind for promoting RSS readers is to avoid spam filters. Does this mean that a lot of the RSS content out there is spam, or what my filters would think is spam?
Is my protection that my RSS reader reads/pulls only from RSS producers that I specify? If I specify a spam source, (a) that's my lookout, and (b) I can change the specification.
It seems like a good deal of work, however, to persuade a serious number of casual readers of a web site or e-mail list to install an RSS reader/aggregator and llink to my feed. I suppose it's marketing like any other form: show me it's worth my while. The first step is the hardest – getting people to have the readers. Adding the next link is not so hard.
The vast majority of web surfers will have access within a year. The next versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Outlook/Exchange and the new Vista OS will all have RSS functionality built in. Publishers who aren't tackling this now will be a full production year behind the curve when their readers are ready.
RSS is a protection against spam filters because there is no need for that technology. RSS put the user in control by giving them the choice to subscribe (or not). By definition, because it's wanted, it's not spam. See Seth Godin/Permission Marketing for further reasoning.
IMO, website visitors come and go, but RSS subscribers are the ultimate target market.
John G:
The reference to spam filters is what might happen when pushing ads or other messages out in mass emails. Those email messages may very well get stopped by spam filters. When someone signs up for an RSS feed, the content goes directly to him/her. No spam filters in the way to stop the message.
Also, by implication the person has agreed to receive the content in the feed and therefore is more likely agreeable to reading its messages.
Yes, you only receive content from RSS feeds that you specify when you are using a feed reader.
I have some other ideas as to the use of these RSS feeds, but perhaps I will put them in a separate post later in the week.