[Kalena] Following our successful experiment of setting up a news feed for my site, search engine marketer Dan Thies and I have joined forces to write this article to show other webmasters how they can do
same for their own sites. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let me set scene...
Being web-mistress of a resource site about search engine marketing, I'm always on lookout for new ways to promote my site. Like many other web site owners, I don't have an enormous marketing budget and must rely on my own resources to spread word about my content.
As you would expect, one effective method of promotion that I utilize is search engine optimization. This ensures search engines regularly visit my site and update my pages in their indexes. Another is circulation of a regular newsletter. But real secret to attracting more traffic is to add bucket loads of fresh content. Providing you promote this new content effectively, it can act like a magnet on your site, pulling in new visitors every single day and giving you opportunity to turn those visitors into loyal followers or, (if you sell products and services), paying customers.
Fresh content improves "stickiness" of your site too - giving visitors a reason to return to your site on a regular basis. And of course search engines reward popular sites with more link popularity and a higher search ranking. Adding new site content is one thing, but just how do you spread word about this new content and place it in front of potential visitors?
Well take my site for example. I had recently added a web log (http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/search_engine_news_blog.htm) (known on Internet as a "blog") about search engine industry, which I updated daily with news and articles. I had seen similar sites having their content syndicated on industry news portals such as Moreover (http://www.moreover.com/), ClickZ (http://www.clickz.com/), ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com/) etc and I wanted a piece of action. Problem was I had no idea how to go about this.
A fellow moderator in ihelpyou search engine forums (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/) (Dan) told me I required an "RSS Feed" - a special file containing content I wanted syndicated - so that news sites could grab it from my site instantly. Dan offered to give me a hand to set up file and so began our quest! I'll let Dan take over from here and explain exactly how we did it and how you can set up your own news feed. Here's Dan...
[Dan] Thanks Kalena. An RSS news feed provides information about your site's content that enables other sites to effectively link to it. There are actually a few different flavors of RSS - for purposes of this article, we'll work with RSS version 0.91, which is most commonly used on web today. We'll also focus on very basic elements of a news feed, and leave advanced stuff for another time.
The RSS file itself is a fairly simple text file. Although it uses an XML language format, code will be pretty familiar to anyone who has worked with HTML to edit web pages.
Let's look at a simplified version of RSS file we created for Kalena's site:
Search Engine News Blog< itle> <p> <link>http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/search_engine_news _blog.htm</link> <p> <description>search engine news web log, tracking daily developments in<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124948"> search engine optimization industry</description> <p> <language>en-us</language> <p> <copyright>Copyright 2002.</copyright> <p> <webMaster>info@high-search-engine-ranking.com</webMaster> <p> <image> <p> <title>Search Engine News Blog< itle> <p> <url>http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/senblogotiny.jpg</url> <p> <link>http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/search_engine_news _blog.htm</link> <p> <width>90</width> <p> <height>52</height> <p> <description>Search Engine News Blog</description> <p> </image> <p><item> <p><title>Google Defines Ethical SEO< itle> <p><link>http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/GoogleDefinesEthical SEO.htm</link> <p></item> <p><item> <p><title>Yahoo Offends Gay Community in UK< itle> <p><link>http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/YahooOffendsGayCommunity InUK.htm</link> <p></item> <p></channel> <p></rss> <p> <p>An RSS feed consists of one or more "channels." A single channel will be sufficient for<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124949"> majority of sites. Each channel, in turn, contains information about one or more news articles. <p>A channel consists of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124950"> following required information:<p>- Title:<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124951"> name of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124952"> channel (in<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124953"> above example, Kalena's channel title is called "Search Engine News Blog")<p>- Link:<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124954"> URL for<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124955"> channel's main web page (the page on Kalena's site where<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124956"> news items are displayed)<p>- Description: a description of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124957"> channel's purpose and content <br><br></font></td><!-- google_ad_section_end --><!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) --><td align="top" width="10%"></td><td align="top" width="45%"><h2>Time to Rate Last Year's Search Engine Predictions</h2><font size="2">Written by Kalena Jordan</font><br><br><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br> <font size="2">Those of you who are long time subscribers to our newsletter The Search Light (http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/free_newsletter.htm) will remember my article from way back in December 2001 titled Search Engine Predictions for 2002 (http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/Search_Engine_Predictions_For_2002.htm). <p>It's time to take a look at that article and<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar "> grand predictions I made for<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124923"> search industry to determine whether I'm a "Nostradamus" or a "NoSuchLuckus". <p>Here were my personal predictions for 2002: <p>1. Increase in Pay For Performance (PFP) Options <p>My first prediction for<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124924"> year 2002 related to pay for performance options: "I see this trend increasing, with<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124925"> major engines and directories expanding on<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124926"> range of PFP options they provide, whether in-house or outsourced". <p>Looks like I was right on<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124927"> money with this one. By<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124928"> end of 2002, all but one of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124929"> major search engines and directories had a pay for performance option available. Paid inclusion services in particular proved to be a popular addition to search engines in 2002, with Lycos, FAST / AllTheWeb and Ask Jeeves / Teoma each introducing a paid inclusion product for<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124930"> first time. Pay per click services also gained in popularity in 2002, with Google introducing their AdWords Select Pay Per Click product in February 2002 (that recently!) and Overture spreading their market reach via major partnerships with AOL Europe in January, MSN in February and September, InfoSeek in March, Yahoo in April, CNET and AltaVista in May, Lycos Europe in June, Yahoo Japan in November, CNN and Freeserve in December. <p>The popularity of Google's AdWords grew quickly throughout<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124931"> year, with AdWords becoming a major competitor to Overture, helped along by new partnerships with Earthlink in February, AOL in May, Ask Jeeves / Teoma and AT&T in July, InfoSpace in September and Yahoo Japan in November. In fact, AdWords became such a threat to Overture that they filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google in April 2002. I believe<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124932"> outcome is still pending on that one. Smaller PPC engines began to gain more market share in 2002, with eSpotting, FindWhat, Kanoodle and Ah-Ha each finding a market niche. <p>And who could forget LookSmart's disastrous entry to<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124933"> realm of pay per click in April 2002? The deceptive nature of LookSmart's announcement and their decision to force existing Express Directory Submission customers to rollover into<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124934"> new PPC system instead of "grandfathering" their listings demonstrated a complete lack of market understanding and for some, forever etched<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124935"> LookSmart brand with<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124936"> word "untrustworthy". It seems LookSmart are still paying for their mistake months later, with a reduced market share and a devastated reputation. <p>As predicted, search engine optimizers have had to embrace this trend towards Pay for Performance and integrate it within their traditional site optimization services in order to offer clients balanced, measurable and successful search engine marketing campaigns. As a result,<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124937"> term SEO has become increasingly eroded by<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124938"> more logical term SEM (Search Engine Marketer). <p>Score: Nostradamus <p> <p>2. Increase in Paid Submissions <p>My original article predicted: "I believe we'll see other engines and directories introduce a fee for submission to their commercial categories. I think Google could be<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124939"> first of these". <p>While<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124940"> fairly new JoeAnt and GoGuides directories both introduced paid submission services late in 2002, they don't really counteract<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124941"> fact that LookSmart dropped their directory submission option in favor of PPC and (thankfully), Google have refrained from introducing a Paid Submission service. So much for THAT prediction! Score: NoSuchLuckus <p> <p>3. Crackdown on Spammers <p>My prediction here was: "With engines like Google leading<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124942"> way in<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124943"> crackdown on search engine spammers, other engines should follow suit in 2002. As a result, there should be far less spammers and more relevant results across<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124944"> search engines by this time next year." <p>Other search engines have indeed followed Google's lead against spam in 2002, by introducing more sophisticated search algorithms, (such as AltaVista's revamped algorithm consisting of 100+ ranking determining factors), by incorporating more spam filtration methods (such as those capable of detecting invisible text and hidden links), by providing spam reporting facilities and by boosting site relevancy factors such as link popularity when measuring sites against search queries. <p>Google still leads<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124945"> War Against Spam, with their dreaded PageRank site penalty scheme and their crystal clear anti-spam stance publicized via their Webmaster Guidelines (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html). The result has been a victory for searchers - more relevant searches, less bacon and ham. Even those search engines and directories renowned for providing irrelevant results recognized what Google had known for years:<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124946"> need to keep searchers satisfied. Yahoo in particular got back to basics by<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124947"> end of 2002, partnering with Google to combine Google search results with their own directory listings instead of serving them up separately.<p>Score: Nostradamus <p> <p>4. Growth of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124948"> SEO Industry <p>Back then I said: "With<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124949"> importance of search engines finally sinking in,<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124950"> need for quality SEO services is booming in<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124951"> U.S. and<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124952"> U.K. I predict this solid demand will continue in 2002, especially in newly developing markets such as Australia/New Zealand and Europe". <p>No longer a niche market, SEO/SEM has indeed become mainstream over<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124953"> past 12 months and is now recognized as a vital part of<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124954"> marketing mix in both<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124955"> U.S. and<IMG height=12 src="/the2.jpg" alt="repparttar 124956"> U.K. Thankfully, search engine marketing has also become increasingly in demand in European, Asian and Australasian markets with scores of new specialist SEM firms springing up regularly and more media coverage than ever before. <br><br></font></td><!-- google_ad_section_end --></tr><tr><td>Cont'd on page 2 ==<a class="mlink" href="2-How_to_Get_Your_Web_Site_Content_Syndicated-24924.htm">></a></td></tr></table><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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