Extraordinary Benefits of RSS Feeds For Generating Traffic To Your Website

 

RSS feeds are handy marketing tools that create a win-win for online business owners and their eager visitors. Those who subscribe to any given feed do so out of genuine interest in the service or content, and the site owner gets to create a regular, real-time dialogue with the interested parties as often as they deem necessary. Likewise, if you submit your content to various free RSS feeds, you are essentially unlocking a powerful and free marketing outlet, which can result in dramatic upticks in your site’s overall traffic. If you’re not already utilizing the power of RSS, prepare to be enlightened and enthused at what these feeds can do for your business!

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “real simple syndication”, and it’s aptly named. These feeds are content broadcasts displayed in a compact reader to the subscriber. For a prime example of how they work, check out Feedly. If you’re a regular user of Google’s version, the Google Reader, take note that it willbe phased out on July 1, 2013. Feedly is particularly useful to former users of Google Reader, as it will connect to your existing Reader feeds.

Feedly, and other tools like it, help users to organize, consolidate, read, and share any and all web content they choose. A given feed can have subscriptions to recent news pieces, favorite blogs, recipe sites; the sky’s the limit. These feeds help site owners take all their well-crafted, high quality site content and instantly deliver it to an eager audience.

How to Use RSS Feeds

Your RSS approach should be two-pronged:

1) Allow users to subscribe to your own RSS feed on your website. All major content management systems have RSS features built-in that make this process quick and easy. These tools will then be linked to your site, and when you release new posts and content pieces, they will automatically be distributed to subscribers of your feed. Depending on the reader each of your subscribers use, they may see just the title of your content, or a small summary as well.

2) You can also submit your content to any of the free RSS distributors. First, download a free RSS Validator application, and submit your content’s URL. The app will then create a URL with the RSS feed included. Take this address and input it into the free distributors of your choice. Feedcat makes a great one that actually lets you track readership statistics as well. Make sure you create keyword-rich, descriptive titles that catch your readers’ attention, just like any eye-catching news piece would.

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The Many Benefits of RSS Feeds

In addition to giving your newly published content instant attention from people who truly want to know, RSS feeds have other advantages. From an SEO perspective, they increase your chances of getting indexed quickly by the major search engines, and RSS feeds on your website are by themselves an SEO advantage, as search engines see them as a good addition.

They are also great for link-building, especially if you’re willing to post relevant content from your partners in the feed as well. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that other RSS feed managers will add your content, creating more traffic and good will. And, of course, search engines love link building!

Finally, since feeds are distributed to quality subscribers, they have a higher likelihood of sharing your content, giving it the viral effect. This all adds up to happy subscribers and a broadening user base for your website.

Tips for Optimal Feeds

If you do decide to submit your published content to various RSS directories, there are thankfully tools that will aggregate your submissions across multiple feeds. Check out RSS Submit. It’s not free, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool that will instantly link you to over 90 RSS directories at the touch of a button. If you produce any volume of articles and content, this is a wise move. It will save you substantial time and effort.

For truly powerful feeds from both a user experience and SEO perspective, create a custom feed on your site that features not only your content, but incorporates feeds from sources that cover similar topics and have content of equal quality. This results in a powerhouse of backlinks to your site, and makes the search engines take notice. RSSMix.com provides an excellent custom feed generator.

If you have a feed setup already, you may have noticed that you receive inbound traffic from odd locations. Many sites “scrape” feeds and feature your content on their site, often as if it were their own. It’s an almost impossible task to prevent this from occurring, but you can use the procedure to your advantage. Install the RSS Footer plugin, and you’ll give yourself an edge. This tool automatically adds a link at the end of every post in your feed that points directly back your website – any page you wish. This provides an instant backlink to your content should anyone decide to scrape your content.

RSS feeds are valuable ways to increase traffic and link building for your online business. Feeds take what could be static content on any website and immediately generate a dynamic, fresh site. Search engines, as you likely well know, love fresh content – and so do your readers. With all the fantastic tools available these days, setting up feeds and submitting content to directories can truly be a one-click process. With a little research and setup time, your RSS feeds can produce tangible increases in traffic, revenues, and search engine rankings, just by utilizing the great content you’re already producing.