How RSS Can Help You Promote Your Business and Website

If you are a casual user of the Internet, you may have heard of the term “RSS,” but never actually done anything with it. You may know it’s a way of getting targeted news feeds sent to you on a regular basis, but you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information already available to you on the Internet, so why should you need RSS?

But if you are involved with e-commerce in any way online, it is time you became familiar with the ways you can use RSS as a powerful marketing tool.

Really Simple Syndication

… is what the letters RSS stands for. It’s just a specification for transporting data across the web. Another acronym you may come across in this context is XML, which stands for extensible markup language, and is simply a set of rules for structuring documents. XML is not only used with RSS, by the way; in fact, it’s the format for office-productivity tools such as Microsoft Office (Office Open XML), OpenOffice.org (OpenDocument), and Apple’s iWork.

You may already use RSS if you get news from information portals such as Google, Yahoo or BlogLines, whose updates are powered by RSS.

Built for Multitasking

RSS is used by blogs, online newspapers, and any other site that offers syndicated data such as news or sports statistics. And, increasingly, online marketers are beginning to catch on to the possibilities that RSS offers.

By offering an RSS feed on your own site, you can alert customers to when you’re running a sale or offering a new product. They can get updates in real time as they occur and not need to rely on the hit-or-miss nature of e-mail.

Not only that, but you can attach practically any type of information you want to an RSS feed — images, podcasts, blogs, etc. RSS capability is also built into many blogging platforms. If you’re considering starting a WordPress blog, for example, you can offer RSS feeds to anyone who wants to keep updated on your new posts.

If you need to generate more traffic to your own site, you can also use RSS. One of the easiest ways to generate traffic to your own blog is by commenting on the blogs of others. Most blogs allow you to specify your URL, so that the name that appears above your blog comment will bring interested readers to your own site. If you post relevant and insightful comments, a large percentage of readers will do exactly that.

How does RSS enter into the picture? By subscribing to the RSS feeds of the top blogs in your industry, you can be alerted to whenever new posts appear. If you’re quick, you can often be the first one to comment on a new story. Experienced blog commenters tell us that the first comment is much more likely to be read and clicked on than the twenty-seventh. So RSS can ultimately help you draw more traffic to your own site.

News from the Source

How do you subscribe to RSS feeds? The ability is built into most browsers. For example, in Apple’s Safari, you can view the RSS feed for the page you’re interested in and then click the Add (+) button on the left side of the address bar. Type a name for the bookmark and specify the collection you want it stored in. Finally, click Add.

In many mail programs, such as Apple’s Mail, you can access the RSS feeds you have bookmarked in Safari and even have them sent directly to a special mailbox.

Want some more information about RSS? TechCrunch.com often features news on how RSS helps people to innovate.

Hitting the Bull’s-eye

Webmasters and bloggers encourage visitors to subscribe to their RSS feeds, and you should too. It helps to increase the audience of repeat visitors to your site. Unlike e-mails which can be lost or blocked as spam, RSS can bring news of your product or service directly to visitors. When they subscribe to your feed, they have shown they have a real interest in what you have to offer, and nothing will stand in their way of your delivering it to them.