RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to automatically syndicate your content in ways that other people can easily read or aggregate it. RSS is formatted in XML which allows your feed to be published once but viewed by many different programs. If you have a blog on WordPress or Blogger (and others) or use Twitter, then you already have RSS feeds. If you subscribe to blogs using Google Reader or iGoogle, you are subscribing to the RSS feeds from these blogs.
RSS is largely invisible to most people. As I mentioned above, you may already be using RSS feeds without being aware of them. However, just knowing you have RSS feeds with various content services means you can easily use these feeds to syndicate your content to wider audiences (which we’ll discuss in the next post). To see if a webpage has an RSS feed, you can look for links which say “subscribe to this blog” or “subscribe to this website”. Sometimes the feeds will also just say “RSS” or have a icon that looks like this:
A website may have a feed, but it may not be obvious – try subscribing to the website using Google Reader or iGoogle – both will try to find the feed for you.
(photo by cogdogblog @ Flickr CC)
Technorati Tags: content, rss, content strategy, strategy, internet marketing, internet business strategy
Having a content strategy is important for businesses because it provides a plan for using their website and the Internet to reach business goals. Most businesses will have goals around increasing sales, improving customer loyalty and brand reputation, and decreasing customer support costs. These can all be accomplished online and on your company’s website and having a good content strategy will help. First step is to consider the questions from yesterday’s post. Once you’re ready to proceed, here’s an example how you might implement a content strategy:
You’ve heard it before – content is king. Well without regularly updated useful content your business website will stagnate. It’s the end of the year and a good time to reflect on how you’re using your website and the Internet to further your business goals. Take a few minutes to think about how you can use content to help your customers and further your goals. The good news is that content strategy can be cheap (in dollars) to implement and can provide excellent returns on investment (helping you reach your goals). Here are some questions to consider in your content strategy: