Get More Inbound Links with RSS
mkLINK Internet Marketing Tips(24 April 2007)

Why Bother?

As you'll know by now, it's hugely beneficial to get a decent page
rank from Google if you want to get lots of natural(unpaid) traffic.
Probably the most important factor in getting a decent page rank -
especially as far as Google is concerned is the amount of decent
inbound links you have.

The upshot - If you provide an RSS feed you get get more
inbound links from decent, relevant sites.

Why would people want to link to you in the first place?

Well, the reasons are manifold and there are many strategies for
encouraging inbound links. I'll mention other ways in forthcoming
newsletters.

What I'm going to concentrate here is a way that other website
ownerscan put your content on their websites - saving them
hassle of having to do it themselves. It's a win win situation - they
get to add value to their websites by having fresh content(which
they didn't have to write and which is is automatically updated
when you update your website and you get a link to your website.

So, What is RSS?

It stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or less commonly
"Rich Site Summary". In a nutshell, it means that if
you make your website RSS enabled(or more likely part of your
website - esp. news pages, product updates etc) then other site
owners can dump that information right onto their websites.

Not all of the information necessarily gets displayed - more usually
it's just a headline followed by some text - a summary of a fuller
article that can be read in detail if required

When a visitor clicks on the RSS feed
- they get more information - a bit like the posts on a blog
or noticeboard

How do I use RSS?
RSS 'feeds' are read by an aggregator. Conversely, you may
wish to put an 'aggregator' on your website to incorporate the
latest news headlines in your subject matter. This is possibly why
the BBC website has a page rank of 9(Very, very rare!)

For example, you can subscribe to the BBC News RSS feed at :
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml

A few notes about different types of RSS

Reading RSS Feeds
You can view RSS feeds either via PC based aggregators
or web based ones.
Popular (PC based) Readers:
A good resource is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm
Amphetadesk(Windows, Linux, Mac)
FeedReader (Windows)
NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook)
Popular (Web based) Readers:
My Yahoo
Bloglines
Google Reader

Publishing RSS Feeds.
This is a bit more tricky due to advancements and standards etc.
There is 0.9 1.0, 2x Atom and others.

How to implement these is beyond the scope of this newsletter -
which is designed to create awareness - not provide detailed
technical specifications.

So, if you want to play around with RSS then here's a good place
to start...

http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/rss_primer/

Or you can contact me...

Want to know More?
Simply reply to this email, call me on 01454 852414
... or visit my site :