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.

Instant visibility

RSS Feeds help both start-ups and established websites. The biggest problem faced by all start-up websites is the lack of traffic. You have just started a website and no one knows about it. Google is going to take sometime to acknowledge your existence. So how do you quickly generate some traffic? Well, publish a feed and then submit it to the feed aggregators. There are several feed aggregators and they all receive a large number of visitors. So by adding your feed to these aggregators you will instantly improve your visibility on the internet. If you give good content, people will subscribe to your feed which will eventually result in a constant stream of traffic. Both start-ups and established websites can build their brand and visitor loyalty through their feeds.

Having some subscribers is a valid reason to publish more content. And whenever you add content, your subscribers will automatically be updated. So you don’t have to worry about having no one to read your posts.

Unlike email marketing, which most of us have tried at least once, feed marketing isn’t considered spam. Feeds are sent to only those people who have subscribed to them. And since feeds are always delivered by a trusted service like Feedburner, you don’t have to worry about your feed not reaching your subscriber.

RSS Feeds are also an efficient means of retaining visitors by reminding them of your site’s existence and encouraging them to make a visit.

How do I make the Feed work for me?

To get the most out of your feed you should give it a suitable title and description. The link should point to the webpage that contains the content.

Validate your RSS Feed. RSS Feeds are written in a special language called XML. By validating your feed you will be able to know whether your feed conforms to the RSS format standard.
Put a link to your feed on your webpage where it is visible to everybody. This will encourage more visitors to subscribe to your feed.

Add your feed to as many feed aggregators as possible.
Give subscribers the option of adding the feed to the reader of their choice. You needn’t limit this to iGoogle and My Yahoo. Several feed readers are available and many of them are quite popular.
Update your feed as soon as you add new content. The purpose of a feed is to keep visitors up-to-date with the content. To make this possible you need to update your feed regularly.

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.