What is syndication?
Assuming that you understand that one of the best ways to get traffic to your site is with continually updated content, the best way to get that content out there quickly and easily is through syndication which is one of the fastest growing forms of web marketing. There are number of ways to syndicate your content, I am going to discuss the most widely used way of syndication and the importance of it.
The method of syndication I want to talk about is RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS has been around since 1999 and was implemented in the form of RSS 0.9 by Guha, an employee of Netscape. Below is a definition of RSS from Wikipedia [1].
RSS (formally “RDF Site Summary”, known colloquially as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.
How do I get a feed?
There are a number of ways to create an RSS feed on your own site. Probably the best and easiest I have seen is an online program called List Garden (www.feedburner.com). Feed Burner is a free service where you can create an account and submit multiple feeds. Below are some reasons from Feedburner.com [2] why you should try their service.
Why a Burned Feed is Better than a Not?Burned Feed
You blog because [your reason here] and FeedBurner can help you do that well.
- Publicize your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
- Optimize distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
- Analyze your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they’re coming from and what they like best.
- Make Monetize by participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network. Why not reward yourself for your effort?
After you have submitted to Feedburner, there are a number of other places to submit your RSS feed. Here is a URL with a list of places to submit your feed. The more you submit the more people have the chance of finding your feed and therefore your site.
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
To Sum It Up:
Now you have your feed, it is submitted widely, you are updating your content on your site regularly. Unfortunately, the work isn’t done yet. Next time we will be talking about how to take all your site data, all your RSS data, and anything else you may have and how you can put it into useable data to make your marketing campaign provide the best results possible.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_)
[2] http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/blogs;jsessionid=E165A7077FF8A3A8C03876FCD0AD5734.app1