Contrary to popular opinion, RSS is not only good for delivering content from your blog, although blogs are what made RSS so popular.

In fact, RSS can be used to deliver a great variety of content and content types. If you can break down your content in to individual stories or individual pieces, you can deliver it via RSS.

Just to give you an impression of power of RSS, here are some examples of content you can publish using it …

--> MarketingVOX is using RSS to deliver internet marketing news to their readers as it becomes available. Instead of having to wait to receive all news in a single e-mail newsletter, RSS users get them as soon as they are ready.

--> Amazon.com is using RSS to announce their bestsellers and to help their users keep track of releases they are most interested in.

--> Some affiliate managers already communicate with their affiliates using RSS. You can of course use it to communicate with any other target audience as well, such as your employees or team-members, and even your company owners.

--> FindSavings.com uses RSS to deliver savings coupons and related information.

--> Lockergnome uses RSS to provide visitors with latest downloads and relevant software. Yet again other companies are using RSS to deliver product updates and patches directly to their customers, just as they become available.

--> A few hundred content publishers are using RSS to deliver audio content, such as .mp3 interviews and even “radio” shows.

--> Textamerica.com allows people to post pictures, videos & text from their mobile phones and then make this content available via RSS feeds.

--> Other companies are using RSS to deliver whitepapers and other educational content.

If you are interested in knowing how credit cards are processed, you can read our free article, “Credit Card Processing Issues You Should Be Aware Of”.

3rd Party Processors – The inexpensive way to start For beginning web entrepreneur, most important issue in credit card processing is how much product you think you can realistically sell in a month. If you are selling less than $1000 per month, then you will want to go with a “third-party processor”. PayPal is most widely known and reputable third party processor, and you can easily set up an account with them HERE.

Unlike traditional merchant accounts, PayPal accounts are free to set up and cost nothing on a monthly basis. You will pay more per transaction with PayPal than you would with a traditional merchant account, but for low-volume start-up businesses making less than $1000 per month, you will gladly choose higher transaction costs over account set-up fees, monthly account fees, minimum charges, interchange fees, gateway fees, and perhaps worst of all, account cancellation fees (just to name a few).

Steps You Need To Take To Set Up A PayPal Account

1. Bank Account – you will need a bank account for PayPal to deposit your funds into.
2. Apply for a PayPal Account (you can access their account application here).

Traditional Merchant Accounts If your processing volume will be higher than $1000 per month, then you will probably want to go with a traditional merchant account. Credit card processing companies generally charge a minimum monthly fee that is approximately equal to amount of money you would pay to process $1000 per month. Generally speaking you can expect to pay around $50 per month in minimum charges for a merchant account. As you process more, your costs will go up, but percentage of your gross sales that you pay for processing should go down.

Steps You Need To Take To Set Up A Traditional Merchant Account It is not difficult to set up a traditional merchant account, but you will need to follow several steps in order to pull it off.

1. Get a business license
2. Get a business bank account at your bank
3. Make sure your web host supports your shopping cart system (you might even be able to get your shopping cart system bundled in with your credit card processing services for free).
4. Try to determine amount of business you will generate. Your credit card processing company will want to know how large each transaction will be, and how many transactions you expect to have per month.
5. Negotiate with merchant account providers and establish your merchant credit card account (see list of merchant account providers).

www.paypal.com	PayPal allows you to accept payments instantly without need to set up special accounts or sign long-term contracts. You will want to strongly consider using this one if you are processing less than $1000 per month.
www.totalmerchantservices.com	Total Merchant Services is one of largest resellers of merchant accounts both on and offline, and are trusted by literally tens of thousands of businesses of all sizes. They use First Data as their back-end processor.
www.merchantexpress.com	This is a well-respected processor that services both on and offline businesses.
www.expandyourbusiness.com	CardService International provides a very helpful eBook that you can download for free HERE