If you would prefer to use an online service to track and manage your feeds, you have advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you use a web browser, and in some cases, on mobile equipment.

Also, any upgrades or new features are added automatically. There are, however, disadvantages to going mobile, such as different and fewer features, as well as slightly slower performance versus desktop systems. NewsGator.com, Bloglines.com, and MyFeedster.com are probably three best-known examples of web-based feed reading services.

If you have a website or weblog, you can add RSS syndication as a publishing option, in some cases automatically. How easily you can accomplish this depends entirely on how your site is served today.

For instance, if you are using a hosted publishing tool like Blogger.com, you may already be publishing a feed without even realizing it. Check to see whether your provider's administration tools offer feed-related options or controls. Other types of websites and application platforms may require some programming skills in order to add RSS syndication capabilities.

In world of web syndication, multiple versions of RSS and Atom are vying for widespread adoption. FeedBurner.com offers a feature called SmartFeed that makes sure feed readers receive version they're most compatible with.

SmartFeed automatically handles syndication format details so that you can focus your energy on creating content.

It is important that you have a good link exchange strategy in place and a process to manage reciprocal links. Don’t link to a web page if they are not linking back to your web page. Link exchange campaigns require your attention and monitoring. You can perform link exchange management manually or you can use a computer program that will do it for you.

There are a number of good programs that perform link exchange management functions. However, there are some programs that do a poor job. For example, some management software programs will perform automated search engine queries to harvest prospects that are not relevant for linking to your web page. Do not use “link farms” in your link exchange campaign. These sites provide hundreds of non-relevant links with no meaningful content to your site that search engines can detect and potentially use to ban or penalize your site.

The vast majority web site owners that participate in a link exchange program do not understand issues and benefits of exchange. As a result, they do not maximize potential value to be gained from link exchange. Learn and implement proper strategies and your web page will potentially benefit from improved search engine ranking and increased targeted and qualified visitors.

Every web site that provides links to other web pages should have a links page. Your links page will be an excellent resource for visitors to your web site. Your web site will be more helpful and credible to your visitors if you provide useful and relevant links on your links page. You can start utilizing power of your links page when it becomes a service to your visitors rather than a tool to obtain higher search engine ranking.

You need to categorize your links if you have a lot of outgoing links. Don’t try to put all your links on one links page where it has appearance of a link farm (i.e., no valuable content or relevance) to search engines that want to index page. Create a useful links page that shows only link categories with separate links that take your visitor to an individual link page for each category. The intent is to provide a resource for your visitors that is useful and can be easily navigated. Search engines love this type of structure that they can fully index.

The incoming links to your web page and outgoing links to other web pages should be structured in a clear manner. Provide your link exchange partners with exact HTML code to be included in link on their web page. This code should include your URL, your anchor link text with appropriate keyword or keyword phrase and a concise description that incorporates your web site name and appropriate keyword or keyword phrase.

=================================== Copyright (C) 2004 F. Terrence Markle – All Rights Reserved Get my F.R.E.E multi-part series on generating targeted and quality traffic to your web site. http://www.QuikSystems.com/WST/TrafficSeries.htm

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