Once implemented your site will display an icon - or or - icons associated with particular information. You may only have one, a ‘what’s new’ for the whole site. More likely, you will have many, one for each type of content you provide - news, product releases, sales promotions, expert advice and so on.

An interested user clicks on an icon and enters your feed information in their RSS Reader (more about Readers later). From then on, whenever you publish a new RSS item, it provides them with a description and a link to your web pages containing the full details. At a glance they are up to date on new content on your site.

The downsides? User doesn't have to see your site to find out what's new. And unlike a subscription newsletter or email, you don't know who's getting your RSS feeds.

RSS has been around for quite a while but has only recently become popular. You’ll be on the leading edge of a growing publishing standard. Oh sorry, that’s an upside.

The big upside? More visitors to your site. If you're like me, you don't have time to visit all the interesting sites often enough. I might not get to a site for months, only to discover it contains the information I needed (or item I wanted), well, months ago! With RSS I can scan the updated "headlines" from your site in seconds, and catch important items while they're still important. I’ll see what you have to offer and visit your site more frequently.

If you publish quality information, other web site can tap in to your RSS feed and display it on their pages. News aggregators such as My Wire Services can also include your feed, an excellent way to bring traffic to your site.

And it is simple.

RSS Reader Software

The many good RSS readers available such as FeedDemon and Jyte (Windows) and RocketInfo (Mac) make it easy to access feeds. The popular Opera and Firefox web browsers includes an RSS reader. Expect other browsers to do the same soon.

The user decides what feeds they want to view. They can have as few or as many as they want, group them in categories and use date options to automatically delete old information. Directories are available listing hundreds of RSS feed sources, from ABC News to Harvard Law School to AT&T, General Motors and McDonalds. The big boys are on to it!

Publishing RSS on your web site

Your RSS feed is simply a file (or files) on your web server, with a name like "yoursite_rss.xml". The techie stuff is in that “XML” label. To learn more, check out the links in the right sidebar.

Each RSS icon corresponds to a particular topic, published in its own "channel". Within each channel are the published items, typically containing a headline, link to your web page and brief description.

If your site updates content by the minute or hour, you can automate the creation of the RSS feed. By tailoring your site structure and using the proper software you can renew your RSS feed every time you update your site. The headline, link and description can be drawn directly from the web page (or underlying database).

For less frequent updates (and at lower on no cost) there is manual-entry software that lets you type in the headline and description text, and insert the appropriate link. Simple.

Items can be set to expire after a number of days so your feed doesn't contain stale items or become too large.

As with all web writing (he says at the end of a long article), the feed should be concise and catch the user's interest. Talk to a newspaper headline writer - they're experts!

Go For It

Here's your opportunity reach a wider audience with up-to-the-minute news. Publish your own RSS. You have an interesting site with good, timely information. RSS spreads the news and drives traffic to your site.
Let FollyArts show you how simple it is.

Cheers
the FollyArts Team

FollArts is not associated with any of the web addresses listed or linked in this article other than its own.