Friday, May 29, 2009

Guide to RSS - Simple and Helpful

RSS is one of the most popular forms of reaching millions of internet users on a daily basis. However, it can be intimidating for beginners to learn. That is why it is extremely beneficial for those people to have RSS explained step by step.

With the passing of everyday, internet users realize that their highest potential of reaching millions us through the use of the internet. The massive amount of web users rising daily makes it vital to have an online portal of information. There are hundreds of tools and techniques to utilize and much to consider when reaching people through the web. Having RSS laid out in a clear and understandable way will be very advantageous.

RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. However, although the world simple is used, it is not as easy as pinning news on a bulletin board and being done with it. With this problem comes the solution of RSS. As many web entrepreneurs will tell you, it doesn't matter how good your product and your services are; unless you are able to make sure that other people know who you are, you might as well not exist. With RSS, you have another very powerful way to make sure that you are going to be getting the resources that you need.

The first step to starting and RSS feed is by creating or having content created for the online community to view, ranging from promotional articles to simple blog entries. In order to make the content visible the public is by installing the feed that will broadcast it to any channel that people use to get their news.

Social networking sites such as Myspace and Twitter are great examples due to their rising and stable popularity. These sites offer the option of putting your content in many different areas for viewing. A crucial benefit is the fact that any updates made will be updated through all the feeds so the viewer only has to visit one place. This makes RSS users very happy since they can get all their info in one specified area.

What good can RSS feeds for you? At the most basic level, it prevents your customers and your prospective customers from needing to remember to check your site and your own blog. They don't need to do things like remember that you exist. The hard truth is that internet users have very little time to waste on surfing the web only to find that the information has not been updated. Take the time to consider the importance of making things for your customers easy. RSS feeds make finding information and keeping updated on that information virtually effortless.

When you want to figure out how to have RSS explained in steps, make sure that you think about how it pertains to you. The easier you make things on your clients and future clients, the better off you will be. Don't miss out on this marketing powerhouse and what it can do for you!

Samo Yanezic is the Webmaster of Financial Freedom Informant.com - The Net`s Growing Source for Online Home Business and Investments Education.
You can visit the site for more free help and advice. See also the Define RSS page.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Samo_Yanezic

Really Simple Syndication

The term RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. Before RSS feeds were available, in order to keep up with certain web sites a person had to book mark the web site and check in every other day or so to see if anything had been changed. If someone has several web sites that they want to keep tabs on, it is easily confusing and some web sites could be overlooked when checking others. And for those sites that don't get updated regularly, it's a waste of time to check them. RSS feeds took those hassles away by sending updated content to various feed readers or to people's email inbox. This way, if someone has several web sites they're interested in, the information is sent to them directly, rather than having to hunt it down themselves.

Web site content that uses RSS include blogs, news headlines, video and audio clips. In order to view an RSS feed the user will need a feed reader. Such readers include MyYahoo, Google Reader, an Bloglines. Some computer programs such as Windows, Windows Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird include feed readers as part of their program. If a person finds a blog or a news site that the want to keep up to date on, they need to locate how to subscribe to the feed. This can be found two ways, either on the site itself, or in the web browser.

To subscribe on the site, web page designers add small icons usually on the front page that has several icons distinguishing different feed readers. These are links to click in order to sign up to receive updates. These links have various names, XML, RSS, and ATOM are a few. Find the icon for the RSS reader you use and click on it. Sometimes the feed will be added directly to the reader, other times the user needs to confirm the request. Once this is done, updates will start being delivered.

Subscribing to a feed through web browsers such as Firefox and Safari, is an option as well. Where you type in a web address, there's an RSS icon on the right side of the URL box. When that icon is first clicked, that will bring the person to a page that has them select the feed reader of their choice. If the person finds another site he wants to subscribe to, that icon will automatically sign up on the chosen reader.

It is also possible to have feeds sent directly to your email. This isn't always an option, but sometimes under the feed reader icons there's a subscribe box where you can send in your email address and have updates sent to your inbox. To prevent updates being sent to the spam or bulk folder in your email program, it's best to add the site's email address to your address book. This way, updates won't be missed.

There are so many ways to keep up to date on current news and events from the computer. It's much more convenient to have information sent to you directly rather than having to hunt it down.

For more information on RSS, visit http://rssmicroblog.com and http://microblogrss.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Parks

What Would You Do With an Extra 15-30 Minutes Every Day?

Do you wake up and watch the news on TV?
Do you go to sleep and watch the news on TV?
Do you read a newspaper in the morning or at night?
Do you visit newspaper websites?
Do you log onto Facebook, Myspace, twitter, or other social sites?
Do you read posts, wikis and blogs on subjects that interest you?
Do you listen or watch NPR, CNN, Fox, or other news stations?

If you answered yes to a few of the questions above or were thinking of other things that you do during most days that keep you in the know but take time, you need to discover the power of RSS feeds. I know they have been around for years but I have recently created mine with Google Reader and absolutely love it.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. There are a lot of different readers available but I like the Google Reader because it is easily accessed from my Gmail page. Basically, when you subscribe to a site you get new content delivered to your reader automatically. You can set how often it happens or how much it delivers but they key is you are able to get most all of what you want and very little of what you don't.

One great targeted use is that I follow the college sports team from the town where I grew up. One the newspaper's website, I am able to subscribe to only news about that team. I really don't care what the city council is doing so I went deeper into the site before I subscribed. You only have to do this once and then simply open your RSS reader to get YOUR news.

I read more headlines and stories than I used to as well as keep up on more topics that interest me and I spend less time than before. I am more efficient with my time which frees me up for what is important to me. See below to subscribe to my blog in your RSS feed to begin today.

Brent E Miller
Subscribe here
Earn extra money

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brent_Miller

What is an RSS Feed, and What Can it Do For You?

You might have seen this term bandied about: "RSS feed." What is it, though, and what can it do for you? That's something a lot of us wonder about, and especially if we are Web marketers, it's something we can use to our advantage.

In fact, by using an RSS feed, both you and your services can be a lot more accessible and visible to people who are looking for you. In many cases, creating an RSS feed is as simple as filling out an online form and then submitting it. Take some time to learn about what an RSS feed is and what it can do for you. In fact, it can be extremely valuable to you in making your business both more visible and more accessible.

What does it mean? "RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication," or less commonly, "Rich Site Summary." It's probably true that you've seen this before but didn't know it.

RSS is used for a lot of materials that are then syndicated, like blogs. Let's say, for example, that you read the blogs of your friends or of those you follow professionally. For those blogs you follow, take a look and see if you can find a small orange colored icon with two orange lines around it. That little symbol means that that blog or other content is available through an RSS feed.

When a blog or other material is available through an RSS feed, you can have it "delivered" to you every time it updates with something new instead of having to go read it. And as a Web marketer, for you it can mean that you can get product updates, news about services, etc., out to subscribers in a way that's convenient to them so that they know what's going on without having to come and search you out.

With an RSS feed, all of the content you subscribe to can be delivered to you so that you don't have to go to continually check for updates. Therefore, if you offer an RSS feed for your own information, you're also recognizing the fact that your subscribers are busy and are making it that much easier for them to follow you.

It's a simple process to create your own RSS feed so that you can provide this service to your customers, potential customers and subscribers, too. How do you go about that?

One of the best ways to do it is to create your own blog. With a blog, you generally have RSS capability built right in so that it's a simple matter to set up an RSS feed. This makes it much easier for people to follow updates, news, new product information, and any other information you might want to post to your blog and that you want people to know easily. This makes it much easier for the people who do want to know these things to keep abreast of them.

So figure out what information you want to get out there, and make sure you set up a way for people to easily pay attention to and follow you. This is something that some people have difficulty doing, but an RSS feed can solve this problem quite easily.

Samo Yanezic is the Webmaster of Financial Freedom Informant.com - The Net`s Growing Source for Online Home Business and Investments Education. You can visit the site for more free help and advice. See also the Define RSS page.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Samo_Yanezic

RSS Feed Submissions - How RSS Submission Software Can Help You

If you have a website or a blog you have the ability to generate an RSS feed from the entire content in XML format. This RSS feed is updated automatically when you make changes to your website or your blog. People interested in the content of your website can subscribe to the RSS feed and receive the updates via email. Another option is the use of RSS feeds to generate automatically updated content on a website.

A good example are the news feeds spread by newspaper website owners. Many webmasters put the news feeds on their blogs or websites to give the visitor the ability to read the news. It is very important that the content of the feed is relevant to the topic of the website it is used on.

If many people use the same feed on their blog, the original website from which the feed has been taken, will receive a same amount of back links and this is very powerful in terms of search engine optimisation. Search engines, especially Google, will give this website more authority and a higher ranking in the search results than a regular website with no back links.

Use RSS feeds to gain back links. Google will love you.

While it is true that back links can make your website rank higher in the search engine results it is also true that the back links can not be randomly linked from any website without a relevant text link. A good back link to your website consists of a text link with a relevant keyword phrase to the topic of your website.

Upon submitting an RSS feed to an RSS directory you are always asked to provide a description and relevant keywords or keyword phrases to the topic of your website. This has several advantages for you as the RSS originator. Whenever a webmaster chooses to use your RSS feed on his website he will have the ability to know what the topic of your website is and keep the relevancy of his website to the topic it was created for.

Another advantage is that Google is constantly searching for new content on the Internet. Because many RSS directories have a high page rank and receive lots of new content on a daily basis, Google will visit them several times a day to pick up the new feed content. This way your website will have more chance to become indexed faster than if you would not have provided an RSS feed.

Use RSS submission software. It will save you time and make your life easier.

You can do the RSS submissions manually. In case you want to submit to only a few high page ranked RSS directories you will be fine. In order to receive maximum exposure and to acquire many back links to your website it is better to submit to as much as possible RSS directories.

Many businesses have already been set up to offer RSS submission services. Some of them offer honest manual submissions for a low fee, but other services promise submission to a high amount of RSS directories and submit using a ,sometimes not so accurate, software application.

You can be very selective in choosing a service and pay a monthly fee. The best solution is to acquire an RSS submission software yourself for a one time fee. There are quality software applications that submit to tested directories that have feeds consistently ranking well in the search engines. A good software will also be updated on a regular basis with RSS directories that prove to have consistent ranking feeds.

Another requirement is that you can also add your website description and that you can add relevant keyword phrases for which the RSS feed will be displayed in the search engine results. With the right knowledge it is easy to buy the right RSS submission software and save a lot of time and money, because you will be able to automate the submission of your RSS feeds and save costs on RSS submission services.

Rudy Dhondt explains how to choose the right RSS submission software for the lowest cost and how to benefit the most of automated RSS feed submissions.
Learn how to have your websites or blogs indexed fast by the search engines with RSS feed submission software

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rudy_Dhondt

What is RSS and How Will it Save You Time?

RSS?

You have no doubt noted the little orange buttons that say either RSS or xml or have something that looks like fish bones on them. Then you click on it and get a funny looking web page? Perhaps you are asking yourself what race of interplanetary spacoids is polluting your internet with more crap. It's not like there already is not enough.

Actually, one of the benefits of RSS is to avoid some of that crap! Avoid it you say? Yes! Read on.

What if you could have some of that wonderful internet come to you instead of you always having to go look for it? And all those great sites you've visited that you completely forgot about? Can you get the milk delivered for free?

Puhhhleeeze tell me how it works!!

So, first some not so technical technical details. RSS feeds are just like web pages but are meant to be consumed by computers. They are in a special format - usually RSS or atom - which exposes a description of what the feed is about and then at least one list of items. Each item in that list will have a title, a description and a link.

Using special software, you subscribe to the feeds and have an easy way to browse the articles without ever firing up a browser. That software tries to keep track of what you have and have not read so you do not risk ever re-reading the same article.

Yup, that's about all you need to know.

Special software you say?

To take advantage of them, you must employ a program - usually called a feed reader or aggregator - which reads the feed and parses it into lists that you can peruse as you wish. There are basically 3 different types.

* The first is the stand alone application. This is a dedicated application that you have on your desktop. Some best of breed examples are FeedDemon and NewzCrawler which range from free to 30$ or so.
* Next you have the plugin type. This will attach either to your browser or to your email program. These are nice as you don't need to get yet another software application. There are free ones for Firefox or Internet Explorer.
* Lastly, you have the online feed readers. Google has the Google reader and Yahoo has My Yahoo which can consume feeds.

View a very large list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feed_aggregators

No, really, how do you make them work?

It is simple actually, if you have the installed type of reader, it will automatically detect feeds in pages and give you options to subscribe to them.

Alternatively, you can capture the link of the feed and give it to your aggregator. Look for a button or option called "New Feed" or "New Subscription" or similar.

Many of the programs allow you to just give the name of the website and they will find the feed. Once the software is aware of the feed, it will automatically check for updates. Whenever you look at your reader, the latest items will be displayed - usually in a list format. You can search or just browse them as you please.

Most will come with some feeds pre-installed so you can see how to use them with some existing data.

Is that it?

And that is all there is to consuming RSS feeds. Do be warned, you may find having the web come to you very time consuming.

Are you into autos or movies? Check out my aggregator where you can keep up with the electric cars produced by Tesla or maybe find info on the latest concept cars shown at various auto-shows.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andre_Turrettini

How to Explain RSS in a Simple Way

How do you go about explaining RSS feeds when you are called to the carpet? Do you mumble, hem haw about, and dodge the in depth technical aspects? Or do you opt to take the studious route and access a web site that will do the explaining for you? If you find that you have gaps in your knowledge of RSS feeds, then you may be missing out on a great marketing and exposure tool that is simple and efficient.

If you are like many people out there, you are trying to get attention online and you are not going to do that unless you have an RSS feed set up. Take some time and consider what an RSS feed can do for you. Once you do, you'll find that it is an extremely simple and very basic way to get the readers that you do.

The first step that should come to mind when you want to explain RSS feeds is that you should know what they stand for. It is nothing very complicated; RSS is just short for Really Simple Syndication.

In this case, syndication simply means creating media and making it more accessible in several different avenues. Now, you should not mistake this to mean that you are changing media, although that can certainly be done. Think about it this way: the comics in the paper are syndicated. They are run in several different papers all over the country or even the world. You can bring this concept to your work and distribute it world wide as well.

While you may now have a better understanding of what RSS is, you may still be wondering why it is so important. Actually, its importance has only risen over the past few years. It wasn't long ago that there was little or no need for this type of syndication because people were not blogging or setting up media sites. As the internet has grown, however, so has the need for better and more efficient methods of disseminating information. Now nearly everyone blogs or has media sites and these are all updated pretty regularly, if not on a daily basis. Your job is to help your readers find the information that they want with minimal pointing and clicking.

Ideally, they would prefer to have the ability to visit just one site and get all the products that they need, such as news, content, articles and other media. This is the importance of explaining RSS, particularly to web marketing newbies.

When you start using an RSS feed, it means that the content that you produce is going to be going straight to someone's morning (or afternoon or evening!) reading list. Rather than needing to remember that they should click to your site or your blog to see what is up, they are simply going to find your material delivered right to their door, so to speak.

Over time, your RSS feed will become a part of their daily routine, a way of life for them. Take a moment to think about this. Your products, your name will become a household word. It is well worth the time and effort to learn this, so think about how you can best make it work for you.

Setting up your own RSS feed is very easy. Many established sites, such as MySpace and Blogspot already have RSS feed options in place. If you are already blogging on these sites, it can be very easy to set up your feed. Take some time and make sure that you know what RSS is, and why it is important for you to take advantage of it.

Samo Yanezic is the Webmaster of Financial Freedom Informant.com - The Net`s Growing Source for Online Home Business Education. Visit the site for more free help and advice. See also this RSS Articles page for more information about RSS.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Samo_Yanezic