Are you new to RSS? If so here is a introduction to what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is and how your website will benefit from offering an RSS feed to your visitor's.RSS is a smooth channel of communication between publishers and visitor's. Since RSS has grown in recent popularity, more website owners are beginning to experiment with and use RSS feeds to deliver content in new and exciting ways. Usually RSS feeds contain news headlines and small content summaries. The summaries have just enough information to allow
visitor to decide whether he or she would be interested in reading entire contents without overwhelming visitor with excessive details. If visitor is interested they can click on headline in RSS feed and access website which has additional details.
RSS readers are software programs that run either client side or server side and their purpose is to aggregate multiple feeds, making it easy for visitor's to quickly and efficiently scan information contained within each feed. Feeds are usually themed, which allows visitor's to subscribe to feeds that are of interest to them.
In a time when spam filters are blocking much of content visitor's have asked for, biggest benefit to using RSS is that RSS gives publishers and readers chance to connect, and for good ideas to be shared, without clutter of unsolicited email messages. There is no opt-in or opt-out requirement. This means visitor's don't need to give out their email address and ultimately rules out any fear of receiving unsolicited email to visitor's inbox. For website owner using RSS to deliver their content nullifies any lingering doubts about whether their content is actually getting through to visitor, which is an issue to consider when using traditional newsletter marketing.
What Kind of Information Can be Delivered in RSS Feeds?
Blog Feed
Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitor's to scan blog posts for items of interest.
Article Feed
Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if article is of interest and read further.
Forum Feed
Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter forum to participate in discussion. As topic is updated they will see new entries in RSS feed.
