# Steps to Create and Promote RSS Feeds



## sunnydiv (Apr 5, 2005)

Steps to Create and Promote RSS Feeds
 by: S. Housley 

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses now have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do. You have finally made the decision that you have to have one. Where do you start? 

Steps to Creating an RSS feed 

1.) Build a Feed 

There are a number of desktop and web applications available that make feed creation easy. I would encourage anyone creating a feed to use one. Though not overly complicated, hand-coding an RSS feed can become a bit confusing and time-consuming. Most desktop software applications for building a feed include a wizard and contact-sensitive help, simplifying the process of creating a feed. Following a few simple steps in a wizard generally will produce an RSS feed in just a few minutes. 

Publishers control what information is syndicated in the RSS feed, so ultimately it is the publisher's decision as to whether to include teaser copy or full articles. Consider what you are trying to accomplish and who your target audience is when building the feed. 

Software to Build a Feed - *www.feedforall.com 

Tutorial for Creating Feed by Hand using XML - *www.make-rss-feeds.com 

2.) Transfer the Feed Onto Your Server 

Once you have constructed an RSS feed you will need to transfer the feed to your server. This can be done using a standard FTP client (if it is not built into the feed creation software). The feed is usually placed in the domain's root directory like this: *www.mydomain.com/nameoffeed.xml , but as long as you know where it is it doesn't really matter. 

3.) Display the Feed on Your Website Using a Graphic of Some Sort 

In order to signal to website visitors that an RSS feed containing content related to the website is available, include a colorful graphic on the website. It has become a standard that nearly all websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics such as flags as indicators that RSS feeds are available for specific content. The flags were initially bright orange rectangles but as the popularity has grown, webmasters have bent the rules a bit. NotePage has made a free online RSS graphic tool available that allows users to quickly customize buttons by selecting the text on the button and the color scheme of the button. Once the color and text is entered, a custom graphic is instantly created. Webmasters can easily match the style of the RSS button to a website's theme. Graphics experience is not required. Simply select alternative colors and insert text to personalize RSS feed graphics. The RSS graphics tool can be used by clicking the following URL *www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm or choose ready made graphics fom: *www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm. 

4.) Include Information in the HTML of the Web Page So RSS Readers Auto-Detect Your Feed 

After publishing an RSS feed it is important to let visitors know that the feed exists. Aggregators will automatically detect RSS on a website if you add a small bit of code in the header field of an HTML page. 

[link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="*www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml"] 

Be sure to replace *www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml with the URL to the RSS feed and replace the brackets with "" greater than symbols. 

5.) Display the Feed's Content on a Website 

Contents contained in an RSS feed can be added to a website, providing site visitors an alternative method for viewing the content. The information will also help increase search engine interest. Displaying the feed as HTML can be accomplished. Providing fresh content on a regular basis will encourage site visitors return. 

Tutorial for Displaying Feeds - *www.small-business-software.net/display-rss.htm 

6.) Submit the Feed to RSS Directories and Search Engines 

As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools. 

In order to increase exposure of an RSS feed it should be submitted to RSS search engines and directories. This can be done manually. Just as you would submit the URL of a website or web page to a search engine you will need to submit the link of the actual feed located on your website to the RSS directories. There is a large list of RSS directories at *www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm . If you prefer to automate the submission process try RSS Submit at: *www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html. An evaluation version is available. 

About The Author


Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll *www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage *www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.


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## goobimama (Apr 5, 2005)

Thanks a lot man. really needed this tut.


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## sms_solver (Apr 6, 2005)

Go to this link, download 12MB free Internet magazine. It also has tutorial for RSS feeds

*www.homecomputermagazine.com/download_issue.php?issue=5


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## sunnydiv (Apr 6, 2005)

thanks for the link solver


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## cheetah (Apr 6, 2005)

Submit feed to Technorati.The most used website for tracking feeds in realtime.


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## tuXian (Apr 7, 2005)

visit feedburner *www.feedburner.com its got all those nifty collection of stuff related to feeds. *I call it Swiss Knife of RSS Feeds *

*Item Stats* : Get closer to your readers on a content item-by-content item basis. Use Item Stats if you'd like to get detailed item-level statistics as well, such as which links in your feed subscribers are clicking through. (FeedBurner tracks hits and new subscribers to your feed automatically.)

*SmartFeed* : Reach the widest possible audience while publishing a single feed, in a single format, on your blog or site. Translates your feed on-the-fly into a format (RSS or Atom) compatible with your visitors' feed reader application.

*Browser-Friendly Burner *: Be kind to users who view your feed in a browser. Informs users about your feed's content and offers options for easier subscription.

*Amazon.com Associates Service * :Earn referral fees from Amazon.com by placing relevant product listings into your feed

*Link Splicer* :Share collected links in your feed, too! Splice your blog feed with your links feed from one of the popular link collection services listed below

*Photo Splicer* :Merge two views of your online world! Splice your blog feed with your Flickr or Buzznet photo feed. More info and free registration: Flickr... | Buzznet...

*SmartCast* :Makes Podcasting easy in feeds that normally cannot support it. Link to MP3s, Torrents, and other digital media in your site content; SmartCast ensures your feed delivers media that current desktop Podcast software can use.

*Creative Commons License Burner* :Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit -- and only on the conditions you specify here.

*Feed Image Burner* : Add some color to your feed. Place a special image in your feed so that it stands out from the pack when displayed in many popular RSS news readers.

*Summary Burner*:Keep your friends close, but your site traffic closer. Make sure feed subscribers visit your website first before following any offsite links in your content. Great if you have ads or other content you want to expose to them on the web rather than through your feed.

*Convert Format Burner* :Nine flavors of RSS and this new format called Atom ... who has time to keep track of it all? FeedBurner does! Let us convert your feed to any of the following formats.

*Password Protector* :Basic security to keep an unwanted Tom, Dick, or Harry out of your feed. Protect your feed with a required username and password using HTTP authentication

*Content-Type Burner* ush the envelope, baby. By default, the Content-Type (also called MIME type) attribute of your FeedBurner-published feed is the same as your original source feed. You can use this service to change the content type of the burned feed to something more appropriate. If you're not sure if you have a need for this service, it might be best to leave this one unchecked.


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