RSS

RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary (depending on who you believe). It is an excellent way for people to "pull" information to themselves, by subscribing to a blog feed, or displaying it on a website.

An RSS Feed is basically a file containing the latest headlines (and content) from a blog, or other information source. Technically, it is an XML document, which can be created automatically by your blogging program, or even simply using a text editor. You may produce multiple RSS Feeds from your website - one from your blog, one for new product announcements, press releases, etc. Anything you publish frequently can be formatted as an RSS Feed. Not just blogs.

RSS Feeds are commonly accessed through an RSS Feed Reader program (aka Aggregator) to view Feeds you have subscribed to. These may be either a desktop program that you download to your PC, or a web-based program where you create your own account and view them through your browser.

RSS Feeds may also be displayed on a website, or used as you wish.

An RSS Feed may contain text, audio and/or video.

Subscribing to an RSS Feed is more attractive to users than signing up for an email newsletter, as it does not clog up your inbox, and avoids email hassles of spam filters and email legislation.

Yahoo provides a simple way of viewing an RSS Feed. You need a Yahoo email account, but can open one for free. Then go to Yahoo.com, and select My Yahoo. With My Yahoo you can customise the information displayed on yor screen. Eg RSS Feeds, news, mail, weather. You do have to logon to your Yahoo account. To add an RSS Feed, click the "Edit" box. Then type the URL address of your feed into the search box and click search. Then when it has found your feed, click Add, and then Finish. That's all. When you visit your My Yahoo page, you will now see the headings from your own blog appearing.

To get your Feed onto a website, you need a third party to convert it into HTML format. There are several that will convert it to Javascript, but some search engines find reading Javascript difficult, and this will remove any advantage.

BigBold offers free conversion. Go to their site, type in your Feed URL (ending in atom.xml), and click Create. The next screen will ask you what your target website is, and your preferred format. Click Create again. Choose the IFRAME format, and copy and paste that code onto your website. I chose to paste mine onto Work From Home. (If you view it in IE, the colours aren't quite right, as IE doesn't correctly interpret CSS formatting inside an IFRAME. But it is nice in Mozilla FireFox)

Then, make sure you promote your blog in all the blog directories. Ping it after each new post. Search Google to find directories to submit to. Exchange links with other sites.

Track visitors to your account. Extreme Tracking offers great free tracking if your display their little icon on your blog.