How many sights do you visit daily to get the latest updates? How much time would
you save if you could get the latest headlines complete with short descriptions
of all your favorite sites all in one place, then if interested you can click through
right to the article or post? As a website owner with regular updates, it is becoming
essential to offer your readers RSS capabilities, because maybe your competition
will offer it and because in our busy lives everyone can appreciate saving time.
What is RSS
RSS, or a news feed is an XML document which allows you to stay current with any
updates from the site you are interested in without even visiting the site. Although
the use of RSS has been around since 1999, widespread acceptance of standard only
occurred in the last few years. With no official icon, the RSS icon generally can
be identified as
Creating the RSS document
Creation of an RSS document can be done in many ways. A google search will provide
the actual specification if you want to create it manually, but there are also many
tools available many of them free. This site creates the documentprogrammatically
each time the feed is requested using asp.net. If interested just send us a request
for the code.
Using the RSS document
So once you have your feed up and running, how do users take advantage of it? Well
users read feeds in a feed reader which come in many varieties. Generally users
paste the URL into their reader application, that's it, that simple. But you can
add links on your site to the popular feed readers (google reader,newsgater...)
which conveniently applies the feed directly to the feed reader. Read tip 2 below
for an even better way.
Tips on RSS
1. Integrate into browser capabilities - many of the blog sites
will do this for you but more so the custom sites will often leave this out. The
newest browsers all have feed readers built right into them, but you have to let
the browser know about your feed. All you have to do is add some code to the <head>
section of our page:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Feed Title" href="feed location"/>
If you have more than one feed on your site just add a second line and change the
parameters then the browser will offer the reader the choice.
2. Use Feedburner - Feedburner is a feed management application
that provides you many great features. Feedburner allows you to manage your feeds
if you have more than one. It also allows you to analyze the traffic through your
feed and can also include advertisements in your feed, why not take advantage of
that traffic. Feedburner also takes care of linking to many of the top feed readers
so you don't have to clutter your own site.
3. Dress up your RSS icon - RSS is a convenience you offer to your
readers with the end result of having them come back to your site! So why not have
your RSS icon stand out a little?
Conclusion
RSS is one of those technologies that has proven itself as a great tool for people
that browse the web on a regular basis. Because of this it is important to offer
your readers this convenience and to keep up with the technology which is still
evolving.