Small Business Blogs – The Power of RSS

Saturday, December 27th, 2008 newcorridor

At every turn, at every corner on the Internet today, you seem to run across RSS. If your eyes are ready to bug out with yet one more technical term you have to learn like HTML, XML or DNS, I hope to change your mind.

Perhaps you already know that RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication“. Maybe that sounds too complicated. If you’re paying even a little bit of attention, you’re aware that RSS has something to do with blog and podcast subscriptions. And that may be all that you care to know right there.

If so, you’ll definitely want to take a closer look. RSS is a big deal!

In fact, RSS is one of the truly innovative technologies dramatically changing the way the Internet works today. Underneath the covers, RSS is one of the engines powering the Web 2.0 revolution.

If you run a blog for your small business and you’re not fully leveraging RSS, read further for 5 key steps you can take today to start putting RSS to work for you. If you’re not yet running a blog for your business, I would suggest that RSS alone may be the single advantage and benefit that should convince you to get that blog started now.

RSS Basics – What is it all about?

We’ve all seen the pervasive RSS feed icon (enlarged image to your left). When you see this icon on a blog, it’s an invitation to click and subscribe to that blog’s feed.

And a feed is? When you subscribe to a feed, every time the blog publisher adds a new post, you get an automatic notification that typically includes the post title, a brief summary excerpt, and a link to view the full post at the blog.

You use a “feed reader” to view all the feeds that you subscribe to in one, easy to manage location. Are you beginning to see the power and leverage for the user here? If you frequent or visit multiple blogs and you want to keep up with the flow of information, using the manual approach, you would need to visit each individual blog, and browse for new posts and updates.

This can become very time consuming if you’re keeping up with a lot of different blogs. For example, I subscribe to over 100 blogs on a variety of subjects, most that pertain to my business and industry. If I had to check each and every blog for new updates, I simply couldn’t keep up!

Leveraging the automation of RSS feeds greatly amplifies my ability to efficiently consume the information I’m after.

Just as liberating, the subscription model puts me in charge. If I’m interested receiving updates and notifications from a blog, I subscribe. If I’m no longer interested in receiving the feed, I unsubscribe, or simply delete the feed from my reader. And I don’t have to wait for the blog publisher to approve or acknowledge my wish to subscribe or unsubscribe. I’m in control. I get to consume the information on my terms. I don’t know about you, but I like it that way!

If you’re saying to yourself this sounds similar to email, consider these two significant advantages of RSS feeds over email to communicate with your audience.

You only receive information through a feed that you subscribe to. 100% permission based, voluntary subscription, completely under your control. With RSS, there is no such thing as SPAM. No unsolicited junk email. RSS feeds are SPAM free!
Since there is no SPAM to deal with, there’s no need for SPAM filters. Unlike email that constantly disappears into the junk mail and SPAM filter abyss, RSS feeds don’t get hung up in delivery. Email delivery is becoming less and less reliable as the SPAM problem continues to get worse. RSS feeds don’t have these delivery issues. With RSS, it’s almost guaranteed to get your message through every time.

Try out an RSS Feed Reader

You have many different options and choices for feed readers. If you’re looking for a reader, let me make it simple for you. Start with Google. The Google Reader is simple and easy to use, it works great, and of course it won’t cost you anything.

Google Feed Reader

The RSS benefit for your small business

Want to insure your readers, prospects, and customers will continue to visit your blog on a frequent basis? Encourage them to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Wondering how you publish an RSS feed at your blog? It’s actually automatic. All of the the popular blogging platforms including Wordpress which we recommend, come with an RSS feed already built in and ready to go. Look for the RSS icon or a link or menu item that says “feed”, “subscription”, or “RSS”.

All your reader needs to do to subscribe to your feed is click on the RSS icon or link at your blog. It doesn’t get any easier or automatic than this.

As more and more people become familiar with the benefit of using feeds, you’ll start to find the majority of your audience will consume your content in this manner. Your RSS feed becomes a key channel for you to connect to your customers. Learn how to leverage this powerful tool to drive more traffic and sales through your blog.

5 steps you can take right now to start leveraging RSS in your online business

Start consuming content using RSS feeds. The more you practice and experience using feeds, the more you’ll understand the benefit. You won’t want to go back to the way you did it before. No better way to learn than to start using it yourself. You can get started with our feed right here. Blog Sites For Small Business – Subscribe to Feed
Encourage your readers to consume via RSS. As you become more familiar with using RSS feeds, you’ll be more inclined to encourage your customers to do the same. And your readers will appreciate the great recommendation! One more opportunity to score points with your customers.
Make sure your website is enabled to deliver content via RSS feeds. If you have a blog, you’re ready to go. If you don’t have a blog for your small business, automatic RSS is reason enough to get that blog going today. You can enable RSS for static websites, but it’s definitely more work and effort. Keep it simple with a blog.
Submit your RSS feed to RSS search engines. The grand daddy is Technorati. Are you connecting the dots here? With RSS, a blog search engine like Technorati becomes a subscriber of your content. Powerful, don’t you think? Here’s a list of more RSS search engines you can put to work for you. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Set a goal to acquire 100 new subscribers to your blog in the next 90 days. I’ll share a great tool with you to keep track of how many RSS feed subscribers you have in an upcoming post.

Start putting RSS to work for your online business today. The small businesses that learn how to leverage RSS will gain the competitive advantage. Those that don’t, well ….

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