WORD MAGIC: (full story)
RSS —Learning to Communicate on the Skinny!
...If you are interested in RSS as a result of some of the
information you have read here about blogs, welcome to
the first of my two part series. This month, we
will learn a bit about what RSS is and two ways you can
use it to improve your best marketing tool –
your website!
What is RSS?
This little acronym’s meaning has been
described in multiple ways. Although there seem
to be occasional heated discussions on the web
about what RSS abbreviates, I’m happy using the
most popular one these days “Really Simple
Syndication.” Whatever you may consider “real”
terminology for the acronym, RSS is a way to
distribute what you have to say in your own
online content to sources far beyond your own
website.
Anyone using RSS creates, in essence, a
“hotlink” to their own content for use by
others. People seeking information on a
particular topic can easily, and cheaply, add
quality content to their own site by “picking
up” a fitting feed from a list of RSS providers.
Now all that is fine, but how can you enjoy the
benefits of RSS?
Create an RSS of Your Own
If you blog, many of these web-based programs
have an RSS tool already built in. That makes it
easy. If you are a bit more technically savvy,
you can add an RSS feed directly via HTML,
without a blogger (more on this next month).
Although I have done a bit of hand coding in
my day, those skills are quickly atrophying due
to a lack of recent exercise -- so, I’ve not yet
tackled anything beyond the blog approach on my
own site.
Another option to creating your own RSS feed
is to hire an HTML whiz to do it for you. You
can even hire a writer to do your content and
articles if you don’t have the time or desire to
write them yourself. With this approach, you can
gain all the advantages without any personal
investment of time.
Regardless of the path you take, having an
RSS feed means whenever you add new RSS enabled
content to your own site, it will appear
wherever someone has picked up your feed. Presto! Automatic, painless updating of your
information web-wide!
Having an RSS feed may not make you famous,
but it could create a bit of “buzz” about your
information, opinions, expertise, etc. It’s a
way to “talk” to people that you would not
normally contact. It expands your potential
“reach.” It doesn’t guarantee all this exposure,
mind you, but it does provide you the
opportunity to list your feed in RSS directories
and painlessly build a reputation based on the
quality of your content.
Use Existing RSS Feeds From Others
Even if you aren’t interested in creating
your own RSS feed, you may want to peruse some
RSS directories and select a few leads that deal
specifically with topics you would like to have
on your own website.
The benefits are that your site will have
topic-specific information that is dynamic and
constantly updated with very little investment
by you. You may have some time invested in the
search, or in implementing the RSS on your own
site (and if you hire someone to do this for
you, there will an expense). The great thing,
like providing the RSS to others, is that the
initial outlay in your time or money to hire out
the task, will be rewarded with automatic (read
this as FREE) updates. Constantly!
Next month, we will discuss some limitations
of this new tool, some technical considerations
and I’ll provide some resources and tutorials to
make using RSS easier. It’s all part of my quest
to keep you communicating in new and exciting
ways – and enjoying the “magic” effects words
can have on your business success!
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