Why Including an RSS Feed with Your Blog is Essential
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a technology that is being used by millions of websites to help users keep track of updates from their favorite sites. It provides users a method receiving relevant and up to date information quickly without the hassle of searching through each and every website. RSS is essentially a news feed that allows selected websites to notify a person every time an update is issued.
Using RSS to Your Advantage
As a blogger you have a lot to gain by attaching an RSS feed to your blog.
Efficiency: Because the application of an RSS feed has changed the rate at which individuals receive their information, you now have the opportunity to give your readers valuable information and updates faster than ever before. RSS ensures that whoever subscribes to your blog will be notified when you post something new. No more waiting and worrying about
whether or not people are know about your new blog post because with an RSS feed: if you post it , they will come.
Effectiveness: Everyday more and more bloggers are adding RSS feeds to their blogs. Research shows that most huge and successful online business and internet portals employ the use of RSS to reach their target markets. If it can work for businesses it can certainly work for your blog. When someone subscribes to your RSS feed you can be sure that that person is a loyal reader; someone who will participate and be interested to hear what you have to say. It prompts the receiver to act, making your blog more dynamic which in turn will attract more readers. An RSS feed also has the potential to drive in a lot of traffic to your blog. It offers exposure and promotion for your blog throughout the web and increases its visibility on search engines.
Wordpress provides an RSS feed, but not the ability to track and manage RSS subscribers. You can use FD Feedburner plug-in to keep track of subscribers. Add the blog’s RSS feed to Feedburner and then copy and paste the resulting Feedburner feed URL into the plug-in and Feedburner will begin providing statistics on followers.
Podcast RSS plug-ins are also available to convert the blog RSS feed into an iTunes podcast feed. Podpress and Blubrry PowerPress support iTunes and audio/video players so that you can easily embed media files in your blog posts.
In addition, as more and more people use iPads and other mobile devices, applications like the Flipboard App for the iPad will make reading reams of RSS feeds much less cumbersome for your subscribers!
RSS is another great little gadget to help advance your blog to the next level.