Channel Title
The channel title in your RSS Feed is the most important part of it. It should contain your most important keywords. Avoid using any HTML in channel title to maximize compatibility with RSS readers. Your channel title is the first thing that catches the eye of a user. It should, therefore, create a positive impression. Search engines often use the information contained in the feed’s channel title to index the feed. As far as possible avoid using your blog/site name in the channel title as it will reduce your keyword density. If you must, put it at the end of the title.

Channel Description
Use the channel description field to give a compelling overview of your article. It should contain related keywords and phrases. But it still needs to be written in such a way that it attracts visitors. SEO optimization of the content is fine as long as it is not at the expense of the reader.

RSS Feed Item Titles
The Feed item titles can be 50-75 characters long. Avoid using any HTML to increase compatibility with feed readers. The item titles serve the same purpose headlines serve on a webpage. It should be compelling so that people will want to click on the link. It should also include relevant keywords and phrases.

Optimize RSS
Optimize your feed for both search engines and your readers. Use proper grammar and spelling in your feed. While putting relevant keywords in your feed is a good idea, you are not supposed to overdo it. Don’t forget that it is the quality of the content in your feed, and not the keyword density, that will make people want to click. If you put links in the description, use an anchor text that has relevant keywords and phrases. Search engines often use anchor text to determine a site’s ranking for specific keywords and phrases.

Limit the size of your feed
Routinely remove old feed items from your RSS Feeds. Limit the number of Feed items so that the feed will load quickly in RSS readers.

Add an Image to your feed
You can add a small image to your feed as it will enhance your feed’s appearance in RSS readers. Most RSS readers are capable of showing images. You can also add images in the feed description field. Don’t forget to refer to the full URL of the image.

Why should I publish a feed?
Well, I am glad you asked. You need to publish a feed for two reasons. The first one is that your competition (rival websites) may be publishing feeds. In that case if you do not publish feeds you will lag behind them. The second reason is that your competition may not be publishing feeds. In that case if you use feeds you can leapfrog your competition. In either case publishing a feed is a great marketing strategy.

How can I start feed marketing?
The first thing you need to do is to publish a feed. An RSS feed is written in a special language called XML. Several programs on the internet can read this language. Many modern websites have this technology built in. For instance, blogging platforms like blogger and WordPress will automatically generate a feed every time you add a post. If you have a static html site, you will need to create a feed using xml. RSS feed scripts can be coded easily so that shouldn’t prevent you from feed marketing.

RSS is not a new technology. It has been around for a while. But in the early days, it was not used with the objective of generating traffic. Today the situation has changed. Dedicated websites are now being with the sole objective of receiving and delivering feeds. Not so long ago, Google spent millions to acquire FeedBurner a very popular service that delivers feeds via email and feed readers. They also built the popular feed reader iGoogle. And now Google even lets ad sense publishers show ads on their feeds. So if your feed has a good fan-following you will make some money just by showing ads on them.

The major players on the internet have discovered the potential of feeds. It is time you started using this technology to your advantage.

Why search engines love feeds
Feeds are all about changing content on a website. And since feed aggregators store feeds of various sites, search engines spider them more often. As you probably know when your feed gets added to an aggregator you get a back link from them. Most feed aggregators receive a large number of visitors making it possible for your feed to be seen by more people. The end result is that your website gets found by more visitors. You get visitors through the links on the aggregator sites. You also get visitors through search engines because of improved search rankings due to the back links from aggregator sites.

How to submit your feed to aggregators?
In the past manual submission was the only option. While this is possible to a certain extent, it is a huge waste of time. Now sophisticated automated submission tools are available. Before you choose one take time to investigate the latest RSS submit technology. New Feed Aggregators arrive all the time. The submission tool you use should be able to catch up with them.