How to Optimize your RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are can be completely optimized so that you are able to provide the best value to your followers while at the same time gain maximum benefits from your RSS feed.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. This technology has been around for a while, but most users do not use it to its full potential. Millions of web users that span the globe use this technology to keep track of their favorite websites (or blog posts)
In order to optimize your RSS feed, you will first have todo a few things to ensure that your followers are actually watching what you are doing.
Publish the Full RSS Feed
Why should you publish the full RSS feed? Because users won’t have to click it to read it. If you only offer a partial RSS feed, that would require followers to then click on the link and read through it. Most people don’t have the patience to do this, especially as they undoubtedly have other RSS feeds to check out themselves.
Publishing the full feed will not only help keep your current subscribers, but you can easily gain 50 to 100 subscribers in one month (or even more, depending on your current subscribers list).
Use Programs to help Share your Posts
Programs such as FeedFlare will help your subscribers share your posts to the social network of their choice. When you use a program like FeedFlare, your feed will then place bookmarking and social sharing links on the footer of your RSS post. From there, you can choose what sorts of services you want to display, such as Twitter or Facebook.
Optimize your Feed Title and Description
If you find that your description or title isn’t as SEO friendly as you thought, you can then use other programs to try and change the metatags for your feed. These can be changed in the Title/Description Burner.
TIP: You can also use programs such as Google Analytics and Google Keyword Tool to help you come up with appropriate tags and SEO data that you can use for your RSS feed. The tools are not only free, but they’re easy to use too.
Cross Post your Articles
Cross posting your articles will get you a whole lot more traffic than you ever thought imaginable. Programs such as BuzzBoost will allow you to republish the burned feed’s content as HTML. From there, you can set it up and then place the code snippet that has been generated in another website which you may already manage.
Always include an Email Signature
A small HTML snippet will help draw a lot of attention to your website. You can include the email signature in your emails, or you can place it anywhere on your website. If you use a tool, such as Headline Animator, you can create quality and professional looking signatures that will show as an animated banner which will then cycle through all of your recent posts.
Always Offer Email Subscriptions on your Feed
A great way to keep subscribers and to hold interest is to offer an email subscription on your feed. Once you set this up, the Feedburner will then automatically send out regular and pre-planned emails to your subscribers when ever you have posted any new content.
A lot of bloggers may already be doing this, but are they doing it successfully? A bland, boring looking email isn’t going to get a whole lot of attention. The smart way to do it is to add your logo and customize the confirmation email. Take a look at the delivery options and set them in a smart way. One of these ways would be to set the delivery time to when your readers tend to be the most active on your blog.
TIP: To find when your readers are most active on your blog, you can track the user activity easily with a free tool such as Google Analytics
Provide a Creative Commons License
Want other bloggers to be able to republish your blog posts? Not a problem. The legal way to go about doing this is to provide anyone who will republish your posts a “Creative Commons” license.
Most users do not actually bother contacting you and will just use your content without even asking. But this too can be used in such a way that you benefit…
How to Benefit from those who Steal your Content
The best way to go about benefiting from those who rip off your content is to add a link to your original content somewhere in your RSS feed. This will help clear up any confusion which Google may have as to which copy of the article is the original, and which is the “stolen” copy. When the search engine sees the link in your feed, it will immediately recognize you as the original blogger and differentiate you from the “splogger” (those who enjoy republishing your stuff without asking).
For blogging, all you have to do is open up your blog dashboard. From there, go to your “Settings” and click on “Side Feed”. In the “Post Feed Footer”, add the code:
<hr />
<a href=”http://www.myblog.com”>My Blog Name</a>
If you are on WordPress, you can open the functions.php file and then add the following code:
function embed_rss($content) {
if(is_feed()) $content .= “<p><a href=’”. get_permalink() .”‘>’” . get_the_title() .”</a></p>”;return $content;}
add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘embed_rss’);
Once you add this, a link will be added to your main blog at the bottom of every article that is published in your feed.
Brag about your FSS Feed Count
You can easily use FeedCount to generate a graphic that will display to all of your subscribers just what your subscriber count is.
Notify Different Feed Reading Services of your Articles
You can easily use different programs available on the web to help notify different feed reading services that you have posted a brand new article to your blog.
TIP: If you already have Twitter (which you probably do) you can easily use HootSuite, TwitterFeed, or even your own Twitter app to post any fresh content you may have.