Marketing and RSS

RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary, although other terms such as "RDF Site Summary" (which emphasizes the file format) and "Really Simple Syndication" (which highlights the main selling point of RSS) are also useful in defining RSS by the book. However, bookish definitions don't always explain things very well. What really is RSS?

RSS is a platform over which a webmaster can instantly deliver summarized information about the latest / most important content on his website. This summary is usually a list of headlines and snippets – the headline will instantly inform the reader of what this new article or page contains and the snippet (usually the first few lines of the article) is to further entice the reader into visiting the website, or to simply give the reader more information. RSS has evolved into a commonly accepted XML standard, and many websites now use RSS Feeds (XML files containing the summaries) to publish "updates" about themselves.

From the webmaster's point of view, an RSS feed is meant to allow visitors and subscribers an easy way to keep themselves abreast of fresh content on their website (without having them visit the website first). Additionally, an RSS Feed also allows the reader to "preview" this fresh content, thus letting them decide immediately if the new article / content is interesting to them or not. All in all, RSS Feeds have the main purpose of enhancing user experience.
Keep that last point as we go through the rest of this article – it is an underlying mindset to making RSS Feeds work effectively.

Using An RSS Feed
As an Internet entrepreneur, one of your most valuable tools can be an RSS Reader. This is essentially an aggregator – a collection of RSS Feeds (that you can add or remove) from different websites that you are interested in. A typical RSS Reader would include RSS Feeds from news sites, sports sites, and perhaps a few niche sites (such as SEO forums, blogs on SEO, etc.). The main purpose of this software is to keep you informed of the latest news and content on websites that you are interested in.

If you have used My Yahoo!(my.yahoo.com) or Bloglines (www.bloglines.com), you've probably used RSS Feeds already. These are online RSS aggregators – you get to choose from numerous websites and within minutes you can have your own launch-pad for knowing everything that's happening in your niche, in the world, or in sports.
As a first step to understanding how RSS Feeds work, I'd suggest that you use at least one RSS Aggregator – either an online RSS tool or RSS reading software like SharpReader (www.SharpReader.net) – and subscribe to a few RSS Feeds to learn how it works from a user's perspective.

Marketing and RSS
Using RSS Feeds, websites can:
• Attract more customers/ visitors. • Keep subscribers informed of new developments • Allow subscribers to instantly learn of new articles, content and products on their website. • Reduce the load on the subscriber's inbox by reserving newsletters for important news, special product offers, etc.
As a webmaster, you can use RSS Feeds to your advantage. Since blogging became insanely popular over two years ago, RSS Feeds have become mainstream. In other words, no matter what your niche, there's a good chance that you'll be able to find a few authority sites that publish RSS Feeds, thus syndicating their latest headlines.
How can you use this?