RSS as an SEO strategy

[SenseiSteve]

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

It’s a format for disseminating or feeding information to other people or websites. My first exposure to RSS feeds was in personalizing MyYahoo page (many moons ago). Was it hard to set up? Not really. The hardest part was finding revelant topics that I wanted to be kept up-to-date on.

Today RSS feeds are routinely used to add fresh content to blogs - which is a staple for improving search engine optimization. Consider this - you’ve devoted countless hours and monies developing, branding, marketing and optimizing your website. It’s beautiful, but you wonder if there were some strategy to improve your stats and readership.

Enter blogs and RSS feeds. Blogs dynamically reach out to embrace and intrique your clients and prospects, especially if the content is revelant, doesn’t come off as advertising and is updated regularly. Unique visitor counts (and return visitors) will explode as the major search engines index your feeds and insight. Does this happen overnight? Not hardly. The debate continues to rage over link submission, with many recommending to let Google and others find you.

Running Google Analytics or other statistics programs will help streamline what keywords or content attracted visitors to your site. To jumpstart your back links, write to those keywords or content, then spread your wings. This equates very closely to test marketing. The key is tracking what attracts hits, and optimizing that to your products or services.

 

[handsonhosting]

RSS is very handy within Control Panels so that you can notify customers of issues that may be happening on their particular server - or doing announcements regarding promotions or changes.

RSS as an SEO tool is a very powerful utility if done right. I've seen many hosting or tech sites that laiden their site with TECH NEWS syndicated through CNN or various other affiliates. Wherever you get your RSS feeds from, be sure that you put in a statement of sorts that if the RSS feed fails to load in "X' seconds - then load "Y" content. If the feed you're trying to get is DOWN or the site is DOWN, that will affect your site also!

 

[bobchrist]

RSS is good tools to promote your content and as well as to create subscription base of your readers.

 

[SenseiSteve]

A big piece of the SEO pie is letting your client's know you have RSS feeds. I can't tell you how many times I hear (over the years with every company I've ever been with) - "I didn't know you did that!" Maybe they don't even know you have a blog, because all they ever do is visit your site to get their webmail.

 

[The-Pixel]

A big piece of the SEO pie is letting your client's know you have RSS feeds. I can't tell you how many times I hear (over the years with every company I've ever been with) - "I didn't know you did that!" Maybe they don't even know you have a blog, because all they ever do is visit your site to get their webmail.

That does happen and all to offen. Perhaps make it an element on the design. I see more and more web hosting companies going with http://www.addthis.com/ or http://sharethis.com/ which has other valuable elements to spread your name throughout the web using social networking. Sorry, I kind of got off topic, haha. But, yes RSS Feeds are nice to keep clients updated.

 

[SenseiSteve]

I see more and more web hosting companies going with http://www.addthis.com/ or http://sharethis.com/ which has other valuable elements to spread your name throughout the web using social networking.

I'm also beginning to see this as well. Social networking is HUGE right now. I've always heard that sales is just a numbers game. It is so much more than that, but numbers play a large part - and social networking has LARGE numbers - and tremendous potential if done correctly.

 

[The-Pixel]

I'm also beginning to see this as well. Social networking is HUGE right now. I've always heard that sales is just a numbers game. It is so much more than that, but numbers play a large part - and social networking has LARGE numbers - and tremendous potential if done correctly.

I strongly believe social networking can make or break your company. I've also heard, "sales is just a number game". That does not hold true anymore and was out dated when the world wide web boomed like it did. Take FaceBook for example look at how many companies have FaceBook pages now, its amazing. We have a local news channel in my area and they are even on FaceBook. EVERYONE! is social networking. And if your not - you will be left in the dust. I wonder what the next fad will be? A year or two ago it was Web 2.0 and social networking.

 

[JLondon]

I'm definitely a person who loves RSS feeds. It can be an extraordinary SEO tool if it's used effectively, but as it was said earlier in this post, you need to make your RSS feed known and do what it takes to gain more subscribers. I am honestly going to be implementing an RSS feed that will help keep our clients more informed.

 

[bobchrist]

If you go on adding quality content it would be easier for you to get subscribers.

 

[JLondon]

I can't believe I forgot to mention that bobchrist. After all, I spend a lot of my time writing quality content for others. Quality content does play a major part in obtaining subscribers, I would definitely have to agree.

 

[vpswebserver]

Great tip for website promotion.