Don't Forget RSS

If your website doesn’t offer an RSS feed, you’re missing a huge opportunity to allow prospects to receive the timely information and updated content they crave. This Web 2.0 phenomenon takes information dissemination way beyond email blasts, giving you a new relationship to people interested in your products and services. Here’s all you need to know.

Understanding RSS

If you’re like most people, you are interested in updated content from many websites. But you can’t always predict when that content will change. Repeatedly checking each website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious. Signing up for email notification of changes was an early solution to this problem. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from multiple websites, they are often mistaken for spam and can be overwhelming.

RSS, which stands "Really Simple Syndication" is a better way for prospects to be notified of new and changed content. With RSS, prospects receive the information they want, the way they want it, whenever it is updated. That’s what qualifies it as a Web 2.0 phenomenon. Notifications of changes to multiple websites are handled easily, and the results are digested in a well organized format that is distinct from email.

Get Started

Getting in on the action is not all that much work. Hundreds of thousands of websites now provide this feature, including major news organizations like the New York Times, the BBC, and Reuters, as well as many blogs.

To add RSS to your website, you need to create a list of notifications on your website and place it into a single XML file (talk to your web developer). This list of notifications is called an "RSS Feed". People who are interested in finding out the latest headlines or changes on your website can subscribe to this list using special computer programs called "RSS Readers".

An RSS Reader is basically a web browser designed to read RSS content. RSS Readers automatically check a series of RSS feeds for new items on an ongoing basis, making it is possible to keep track of changes to multiple websites without needing to tediously read and re-read each of the websites individually. They detect the additions and present them all together in a compact and useful manner. If the title and description of an item are of interest to your prospects, the link can be used to quickly bring the related web page up for reading.

Provide the right information

An RSS notification presents very basic information in order from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual information being described. Sometimes this description is the full information your prospect wants to read (such as the content of a weblog post) and sometimes it is just a summary.

Follow Best Practices

Today, more and more websites have RSS feeds. You might find a link called RSS on a home page or main news page, or you might see an orange graphic box with the letters "XML" or "RSS". RSS feeds are also often found via a "Syndicate This" link. Text "RSS" links sometimes (there are lots of variations) point to a web page explaining the nature of the RSS feeds provided and how to find them. The buttons are often linked directly to the RSS feed file itself. It’s up to you to decide how prominently you want to display this new source of information on your website.

Take it to the next level

RSS is shaping up to be a very popular and useful means for keeping in touch with your customers and prospects. In addition to notifying prospects about news headlines and changes to websites, RSS can be used for other purposes, including:

1. Notification of the arrival of new products
2. Listing and notifying newsletter issues, including email newsletters
3. Notification of additions of new items to a database
4. Notification of new members to a group