ALL content should be created with findability in mind.

Transcription

1 Agenda Harnessing the Power of RSS Harnessing the Power of RSS Amy Greer & Roger Gilliam Closed Loop Marketing Web Builder 2.0 Las Vegas December 4, 2007 Build the Foundation What is RSS? RSS Feed Elements Harness the Power Feed Optimization Content Optimization Practical Applications What Does That Mean? ALL content should be created with findability in mind. If you re taking the time to create content, make sure that content can be found by your target audience If your content cannot be found, you re missing out on potential revenue, customers, exposure, etc. If you are creating content that can be found, and your competitors aren t you ve just created a competitive edge BUILDING THE FOUNDATION What is RSS? 1

2 What Does RSS Mean? Really Simply Syndication Basic Terminology Feed an XML document that contains basic information (such as Title, Description and URL) about content that is hosted on a provider s site it allows other sites to consume and display that content automatically. RSS one of the most popular feed types (Atom is another Feed type) Ping a notification to a web site or feed tracking site (such as Technorati) that a feed s content has been updated. Feed Reader / Aggregator a tool that allows users to subscribe to syndicated feeds and view them all in one place (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, etc.) Content is added to one place (e.g. your blog) That content is then automatically distributed and published to many places (e.g. feed readers, subscribers) at once New Blog Post is Added Here: Sites or feed readers that have subscribed to the blog s feed are AUTOMATICALLY notified and publish the new content on their sites: Where Are They? Here Where Are They? And here What Else Can They Be Used For? Additional Uses for RSS Feeds Blog posts and news items are the most prevalent, but RSS can be used to syndicate almost any content: Video Podcasts New product releases Membership content (ebooks, white papers, research) Product sales 2

3 Where Do They Come From? An RSS feed is an XML document that follows a specific set of rules e.g. every RSS document must contain certain elements and use an exact syntax This document can either be created by a custom built application, or by a pre-built application Custom: Write your own code to generate the RSS feed as an XML document Pre-built: Use an existing product to generate the RSS feed There are many options available Bottom line: XML has to be generated and it has to adhere to the RSS specification Market Penetration The number of managed feeds continues to increase - and shows no sign of slowing More and more professionals incorporating feeds into their online strategies RSS vs. Atom Evolution Why is RSS more popular than Atom? Historically, many different versions of RSS Differences led to inconsistency RSS 2.0 spec copyright assigned to Harvard s Berkman Center for the Internet & Society RSS 2.0 spec frozen in 2003 to promote stability Members of the development and coding community not happy with RSS, so they developed Atom However, RSS is still the more widely accepted format Around longer and more widely known RSS is the new Kleenex, Xerox, etc RSS 2.0 support for enclosures led directly to the development of podcasting Watch for future changes will Atom take over? Big Takeaways RSS syndicates your content making it easily accessible and distributed RSS can be used to distribute many different types of content, not just blog posts or news items RSS is efficient update your content in one place and have it populate potentially thousands of other sites RSS is free and simple to use in most cases RSS consumption is very hard to track accurately, but all evidence points to exponential growth If you have content and want more people to see it, you need to syndicate RSS Feed Elements 3

4 Sample XML Feed Feed Displayed in Firefox Feed generated from Content (in Firefox) CHANNEL The first part of the 'channel' tag is the area where you specify information about the feed itself Content IMAGE Use the optional <image> section to display a company logo ITEMS The <item> section is where each piece of content in your feed is identified and described. You can include as many items as you want. CATEGORIES You can add categorization to the <channel> and each <item> to make your feed more useful to syndication hosts, increasing the odds they ll use your feed. You can have as many categories as you want, and you can create your own or use public taxonomies such as DMOZ. Feed Displayed in Google Reader Feed generated from Content (in Google Reader) Content How to Harness the Power? HARNESS THE POWER What s the Difference? Optimize the CONTENT In a word: Optimization In seven words: Optimizing feeds and the content they syndicate 4

5 What s the Difference? Optimize the FEED The End Result Achieve more visibility, findability, etc with feed optimization and syndicated content optimization Use Full Text vs. Partial Text Feed Optimization While click-through rate for full text vs. partial text in feeds is approximately the same, there are a variety of benefits to full text feeds: Increased readership, subscriber loyalty and content distribution, etc. Vs. Would you click through to read the full article or skim the one with content already in front of you? Partial Text Feed You Need to Click to Read Full Text Feed Content is There 5

6 Show 20 Posts If your blog software defaults to showing 5 or 10 posts in its feeds, then increase it to 20. More content for new subscribers to see Both blogs have much more than 20 posts, but this blog only shows 10 in the feed subscription window: Enable Auto-Discovery Auto-discovery allows users to sign up for your feed on any page of your site with just a few clicks. Many browsers will display a chicklet in the browser URL bar when a feed is auto-discoverable Add Categories to Feeds Comprehensive taxonomies are available: Google Video offers Video Feed Category Suggestions itunes provides Podcast Feed Categories and Subcategories Add Image References To Feeds Examples would include company logo or a thumbnail of a video. Feature is not supported by all feed readers yet, but is still a good opportunity to help your feed stand out If this image reference is for a video or podcast, then the destination for the logo link would be more relevant if it was for the main page of that video, rather than the home page. A good opportunity to include descriptive keywords in the image file name is being missed. Feed Image Examples in Bloglines Use Keyword-Rich Feed Titles and Descriptions Optimized Feed Title and Feed Description: Blog Tips and Make Money Online Vs. Non-Optimized Feed Title and Feed Description: Vs. Ambitious Companies 6

7 Validate Your Feeds Once you ve made changes to your feeds, be sure to validate them through a site like Feed Validator ( Fixing any errors found during validation will help to ensure your feed is compatible with the variety of readers available. So How Long Will This Take? Content Optimization Let s Talk About Blogs Use Keyword-Rich Tags on the Home Page Incorporate targeted keywords into the Title and Meta Tags for your blog s home page Add News Reader Subscribe Buttons Make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your feeds 7

8 Claim Blogs in Technorati Offer -Based Subscriptions Blog authors should claim their blog in Technorati Claiming a blog allows authors to add a photo or a logo and a description of the blog increasing visibility in a major blog search engine Example of a claimed blog: This enables your audience to receive your content via as opposed to using a feed reader. Many (if not the majority of) people are still unfamiliar or not comfortable with the concept of feeds. It depends on your particular audience, but you should consider offering an -based subscription. Notify Blog Search Engines Each Time You Post Blog software generally makes this easy. Make sure your blog is at least pinging ping-o-matic (send pings to Ping-o-matic pings many of the major blog search engines. Consider pinging other services such as: See for a full list of additional pinging services Optimizing Individual Blog Posts Use Custom Page Titles Customize every page title on your blog with relevant keywords in order to increase search engine visibility Conduct Keyword Research Before Writing Blog Titles Incorporate high-volume and relevant keywords into your blog titles and URLs If a clever title must be used on the page, change the Title Tag and URL to reflect the targeted keywords Blogs Gone Wild doesn t have much search volume, but it s too catchy to abandon. Instead, this post incorporated targeted keywords into the Title Tag and URL to increase search engine visibility 8

9 Results in Increased Ranking in SERPs Utilizing relevant keywords in the Title, URL and Description can result in higher organic search rankings Results in Better Usability in Feed Aggregators Utilizing relevant Titles and Descriptions helps users to easily scan your content in a feed aggregator SearchCap s Item Title and Description are the same, except for the date Which one would you read first? Andy Beard s Item Titles and Descriptions are unique to each feed item Use Keyword-Rich URLs Keyword-rich URLs also increase search engine visibility by reinforcing the keyword focus of the page URLs With Targeted Keywords Have a Competitive Advantage HP Video URL: Apple Video URL: Add Social Networking and This Links Use Tags and Categories in Blogs These links allow readers to quickly bookmark a blog post, increasing its overall visibility in the blogosphere and the potential for more inbound links Add tags to your posts that are relevant, high-volume search terms. Tags are different from categories Categories should be used as an organizational tool for your specific blog Examples of categories: blogs, SEO, usability Examples of CLM categories: frickin cool, rants Tags are specific to each post and can include multiple variations of a category term Examples of tags: blog seo, blog visibility, blog optimization 9

10 Tags vs. Categories Tagged Pages Listed in Google Blog Categories Blog Tags Through the use of both Tags and Categories, you can create numerous, keyword-rich pages for your blog: Uses for Feeds Practical Applications Putting It All Together As an alternative to Advertising within feeds (monetization) Practical Applications and Takeaways RSS An Alternative to Feed Monetization RSS Advertising marketing has numerous potential barriers to delivery RSS is an opt-in medium, reducing many traditional marketing barriers Companies like Pheedo and Feedburner have been leading the charge Feeds become sources of revenue generation 10

11 Important Takeaways RSS is efficient and effective allows you to easily distribute your content to potentially thousands of sites RSS enables distribution of multiple forms of content blogs, videos, product updates, etc. RSS optimization has 2 components it is necessary to optimize the feeds as well as the syndicated content within the feeds Thank You amy@closed-loop-marketing.com roger@closed-loop-marketing.com 11