RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites. All kinds of websites, from major professional news organizations to personal blogs, can use an RSS feed to make their content available to multiple outlets simultaneously (syndication).
"RSS" is short for "rich site summary," "RDF site summary," or "really simple syndication," depending on which version of the RSS standard you're using. But what RSS means is less important than what RSS does.
A site with an RSS feed will allow you to subscribe so that you'll be updated when changes are made to that RSS feed on the site. The advantage of time sensitivity is one of the reasons that RSS feeds are often used for news updates, but nearly anything that can be separated into discrete items can use RSS to syndicate that content. RSS also allows others to add links to your content from their websites.
By allowing visitors to "see" the changes to your website without actually visiting it, you're really improving your site's visibility, as odd as that may seem. Your visitors no longer have to remember to visit your site; RSS will deliver your site changes to them. And if those changes interest them, they're more likely to visit your site again, and to tell their friends about your site.
How Do I Use RSS?
If you have an understanding of HTML, you can probably build an RSS file by cobbling code from other RSS files you see on the web. Many blogging programs even have tools that will automatically create an RSS feed for you.
If you type "RSS tutorial" into any of the major search engines, you'll get hundreds of links to sites that can explain RSS code to you in detail and give you samples of it to look at.
Want to keep your visitors up-to-date? Add an RSS feed to your site today.
|
|
|
|
|
