Why Your Site Simply Must Have An RSS Feed

RSS feeds dramatically grew in popularity from 2006 onwards, when browsers became capable of really understanding this new feed option and also websites became more enabled to produce them. RSS feeds are an excellent way of keeping your information in front of your subscribers, offering updates about anything that you post on your website within minutes of doing so.

Even though the RSS feed has been around since 1999 and gained widespread appreciation from 2005 onwards, not everyone really understands what RSS is and how you should be using it on your website and indeed why you should have an RSS feed on your site.

RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication and was developed back in 1995 and has since evolved through formats and versions and has now really just become known as a website feed or an RSS feed. In its most basic form, a RSS feed is simply a way of formatting data into an easy to read feed, which allows users to find out what is being published and broadcasted on any website they subscribe to. This means that if they were interested in ten websites, they could subscribe to each of these sites via the RSS Feed and then short snippets of information would appear in their reader which they could click onto and then be taken to the site should they wish to read more.

To make the most of RSS feeds, you need some kind of feed reader which can be utilised through your browser, on your desktop or even through your smart phone, with the latest phones now really supporting RSS feeds. Some of the most common RSS Feed Readers are:

Google ReaderFeed BurnerXnewsSnarferFeedDemon

But there are literally thousands of others, all designed to either work on your browser, desktop or mobile phone. You can also get various add on's and plug ins for Firefox and Chrome that will allow you to manage your feeds within your browser, which makes life much easier if you have many sites that you would like to keep an eye on but simply do not have the time to check each one by one.

When it comes to your website, the reason that you must give users the chance to subscribe to your RSS feed is that it allows you to broadcast your latest offerings directly to their computer or mobile phone. In the modern world it is vital that you get the information in front of your potential or existing customers as soon as you have released it and you can achieve this really easily by encouraging people to subscribe to your feed.

You can use your feed for:

Special OffersDiscount CodesLatest ArticlesPress ReleasesBlog Posts

And it can also be quite a good idea to give users a reason to subscribe to your RSS feed, maybe a competition or prize draw that just gives them an incentive to do so. You must remember that because the majority of websites now provide a feed, you need to give users a reason to subscribe to yours, pretty much like anything on the Internet these days, you have to incentivise people.

If you can build up a good list of subscribers then you know that as soon as you release your latest product, promotion or article you can tell them all immediately, without you having to even do a thing. This really is immediate direct marketing and can work so well if you get it just right in terms of delivering extra traffic and sales to your website and business.

More