You can begin the process of supplying RSS Feeds to your Blog by searching for something called an RSS Feed reader or aggregator or reader. Adding RSS Feeds to your Blog is really very simple, even for those unknown with XML. The simplest way to get started is by attempting out a trial version of an RSS Feed reader or use a free version.

Once you have your RSS feed reader installed, you will wish to begin searching for relevant Feeds for when you start adding RSS Feeds to your Blog. RSS Feeds can add up fresh content with success to any kind of Blog that you can add independent projects, advice columns, jobs, horoscopes, industry-related news, press releases, and other up-to-the-careful content without doing any searching at all. The only searching you will require to do is find the Websites that have an RSS Newsfeed. How can you determine out if the content is Feed-ready? You require to look for the RSS Newsfeed symbol or to search the link that says “syndicate this.

When you choose a given Feed, select for the Website to post you to a page with XML Code. Copy and paste the URL of that page into your Aggregator. Your Aggregator will then develop a small piece of code that you can post into your Blog. Your Blog will now always carry a new set of links and summaries will be rendered by the RSS Feed you added. Adding content to your Blog does not have to be complex, as you can see. You just require a little Web 2.0 know-how, few search skills and a very little help from some Online friends.

So when do we need such services? Regular static sites hardly require them. They are useful for the sites which are frequently updated i.e. blogs, ezines and other news sites. They are basically a summarized version of all the contents in the site and when you subscribe to a feed from any site you keep getting those updated summaries in regular predetermined time intervals.

RSS, which is most popularly expanded as, “Really Simple Syndication” is in fact an entire family of web feed formats used for the feeding purpose. It syndicates data from the respective blog entries, news headlines as well as audio visual updates to certain standardized formats and creates RSS documents which are what we call the web feeds or channels. This contains summarized text from the sources along with metadata like authorship and publishing dates. So by using the feeds you can get regular updates from the sites you want to follow. Also, you can get aggregated feeds of many sites to make life easier.

RSS feeds are read using types of software called “RSS readers”, “feed readers”, or “aggregators”. There are several versions available to support the platform you are using. So you have web based, desktop based or mobile based readers. In any case, the standard file format used is XML. Once it is published, it can be viewed by various programs. You just have to click the RSS icon on any site to start subscribing to the feeds. By the way, this omnipresent RSS icon has come into prominence only recently. If memory serves me right, it began appearing all over after 2005 or 2006. So it can be called an ultimate web 2.0 tool although it is being developed from the mid 90′s by the bright minds of the field.

Having said all these, let us get down to business now. Why are the RSS feeds or any other feeds for that matter, given so much importance nowadays? Do they help in your business? If yes, how can they be used in promoting your online business or where exactly can they help?

Let me list out five basic reasons for using the RSS feeds in your online marketing campaigns. This list is by no means exhaustive. There can be many more. But these are some of the most important aspects pointed out by the experts and they should be enough to make you understand the importance of web feeds in general and RSS feeds in particular.

1. It helps you get listed: Whenever you start a new site it is for your own benefit that you get listed by the search engines as soon as possible. Unless the site is listed, people searching for relevant terms, won’t get to see your site in search results. But the natural process of listing might take many weeks. The web crawler or the spider as it is popularly known, crawls the web in regular intervals and detects new websites also. This is not very encouraging from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) point of view. A faster way to get listed is by submitting RSS feeds to popular indexing sites or RSS directories. You just have to create RSS feeds of your sites and submit the links to all those sites. Nowadays, there are also some submission sites available for you, which would help you to submit your feeds in multiple sites at the same time thus saving your labor and time. What happens here is, the spider crawls these well highly ranked and popular sites frequently and so once your site is listed there, you get listed by the prime search engines also. In fact you can also pay to get listed, but this is much easier and there is no need to pay anything.

2. It helps you bypass mails: Well, don’t get it wrong to begin with. There is nothing fishy and we are not promoting spamming. You must have noticed the constant bombardment of promotional emails offering everything from insurance policies to Viagra. Nowadays most of them end up in your spam folder and you delete them without even opening them once. In case you did not know, there also a large amount of mails which remain undelivered as they are filtered out by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). So your own promotional mails can also fall prey to such filters. But RSS feeds can be the way out for you. In fact you can go for costlier options like employing a full time professional who will work on the subject lines of your mails to make them pass the filters. Instead of that, people can subscribe to the RSS feeds which would not be filtered by any ISP and so you can reach all of your target population.

3. It helps you targeting the segments: Now coming to hardcore SEO, yes you can do your usual keyword targeting with RSS feeds also. What you can do is, you can decide several keywords to target your desired segment. Then you can build several feeds based on different keywords and submit them all to RSS directories. So anyone who searches for any of the keywords might stumble upon one of your feeds.

4. You can also help in podcasting: As you know, podcasting is the recent progeny of telecasting and webcasting. This is basically the broadcasting through your Apple iPods. As you can also syndicate your mp3 audio files through RSS feeds, they can now also be podcasted. So anyone can download them in the iPods. So if your potential client is too lazy to carry a laptop, you can still reach him through his iPod!

5. It helps in generating leads: Finally, let us talk from the sales perspective. These feeds simply give you a much wider reach than you can imagine. That is because all your blog posts, newsletters or advertisements are being syndicated all over the web. As subscribing to RSS feeds is just one mouse click away, it also makes your site more accessible to your visitors. A bigger audience base ultimately means a bigger base of potential clients. So more visibility leads to more leads and eventually, more sales. But always remember to submit the feeds in relevant directories (just search for them, not difficult to find) to have the desired impact.

So, by now you must have realized how this simple technique of syndication can help you go great lengths in your new endeavor. Always remember that these are still early days for these technologies and so always keep you ears and eyes open for any new developments. So, what is the best way to keep you updated? Well subscribe to some relevant feeds!

In A cut throat online world of marketing you need certain tools to make your business a successful one. Adam has learnt from some of the very best big earners on the internet today and is rapidly creating a name for himself and his business. Let Adam show you the route he took to a better life and financial freedom. Join the U.K’s elite team today and see how easy it is to make money online

Author: Adam Woods
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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.

Who should publish an RSS feed?

A number of websites now offer RSS Feeds. If you regularly add new content to your site, you should publish an RSS feed to let your visitors know that new information is available on your site.

Benefits and Reasons for using RSS

Many websites have constantly changing content. How will your visitors know you have added new pages unless they go through your entire website? The truth is that most visitors dont have the time or patience to scan entire websites for new information. RSS feeds are a great way to help them stay up-to-date with the latest content on the sites they are interested in. Nowadays the number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly.

How can I read an RSS Feed?

Well, to read an RSS Feed you need to add it to a Feed Reader. A Feed Reader is a special program that displays the RSS feeds published by various sites. A number of feed readers are available. Examples are: NewsGator, Bloglines, My Yahoo and Google Reader. Many of us use one or more of them. Once you have decided which feed reader you intend to use, all you have to do is to find sites that publish feeds and add their feed to your feed reader. Most websites publishing a feed will display an icon with the acronyms RSS, XML or RDF. These icons are given to indicate that a feed is available. Click on these icons and you will be given the option of adding the feed to the feed reader of your choice.

How does a feed benefit the reader?

RSS Feeds help protect the reader from spamming. Your Feed Reader will only display those feeds you have subscribed to. So you only receive the information you are interested in. If one day you lose interest in the content offered by a particular website, you can remove their feed from your reader and you will no longer receive their feed updates. Readers are also saved the trouble of visiting websites just for the sake of checking whether new information is available.

How do publishers benefit?

Publishers benefit too. For publishers, feeds are a great way of getting repeat visitors without having to worry about maintaining email lists. If a publisher gives a feed with interesting content, readers are bound to follow the link.