GOOGLE FEEDBURNER
As a blogger, you can use Google FeedBurner (www.feedburner.google.com), which has been around for a while, to notify subscribers whenever you create a new blog post. (Podcasters use FeedBurner to burn feeds for iTunes). It’s a quick and easy way to deliver content to people who want to see your content immediately, without having to journey to your web site.
The outstanding quality of FeedBurner is its huge syndicate. You can reach out to more people who may be potential clients by disseminating your feed to the Google network of syndicates.
BURNING A FEED
Burning a feed with Google FeedBurner is easy. You need a Google Account, which is free. After that, all you need to do is follow these steps:
1. Open your favorite web browser and navigate to http://feedburner.google.com.
2. Sign in with your email address and Google password. If you don’t have a Google account, you can create one at this time by clicking the create
an Account button. If you have a Google account and have existing feeds, they’re listed at the top of the page.
3. Enter the URL for the feed you want to burn.
4. Click Next. The page refreshes with the Google Feedburner address filled in.
5. Enter a title for your blog. Subscribers see this information in their feed aggregators. If you set up a blog at WordPress.com, the title is already filled
in. It doesn’t hurt to use words that visitors would associate with your site, to provide more optimization for search engines.
6. Click Next. The page refreshes with a note congratulating you on burning your feed. FeedBurner makes your feed browser friendly by default and gives
you basic feedburner stats to track circulation, readership, and uncommon uses. You now have the option to spiff it up with the optional feedburner stats plug-in.
7. Click Next. The page refreshes and you see other options for feed stats.
8. Choose the other statistics options you want to track. You can add any of these:
. Clickthroughs : Monitor the number of people who click items back to. If someone creates a link to one of your blog posts from their web site or blog,
it shows up as a click through.
. Item enclosure downloads : Monitor podcasts downloaded directly from your site.
. I want more : Monitor individual item views and resyndication. This option tells you which posts are the most popular. You can also target the reach
(the viewed or clicked content in your feed) of your blog or podcast.
9. Click Next. The page refreshes and you have options for integrating the feed into your blog.
10. Choose to integrate the feedburner Google feed with a blog hosted by Blogger. TypePad, or WordPress.com or a self-hosted WordPress blog.
Choose whether to publish a chiclet (small icon) on your MySpace page or offer an email subscription to your MySpace blog.
PUBLICIZING A FEED WITH FEEDBURNER
After you burn a feed, it’s time to tell the world all about it. You can do so with your other social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter. However, you can also top in to the far-reaching Google network.
To get your feed noticed in the Google network, follow these steps:
1. Launch your favorite web browser and navigate to: www.feedburner.google.com. The Google Feedburner home page appears.
2. Enter your email address and Google password, and then click Sign In. You’re redirected to a page that shows your current feeds. In addition, you
see stats for every feed you’ve burned.
3. Select the feed you want to publicize and then click the Publicize tab. The page refreshes and shows your current content and the options available
for publicizing your podcast to blog. The options are on the left side of the page. Click the desired link to use that service to publicize your blog.
FEEDING YOUR SITE WITH RSS
The whole point behind RSS it that it gives consumers information, a way to automatically view new comments put out by bloggers or other publishers without having to open the web sites of those publishers on a regular basis.
After you commit to being a periodic publisher, and after you have a text file you want to convert, you can go on to the next step. Converting it to RSS format. You have several options:
. Build-in software : If you use a blogging tool, such as WordPress (http://wordpress.org) or Blogger (www.blogger.com), you can use the
built-in syndication software. Blogger supports Atom, a different type of syndication format.
. Stand along program : You can use a stand along, web-based syndication program such as RSS Channel
Editor (www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/perl/rssedit.pl). The form for RSS channel editor that you fill out, then it quickly builds your file. You simply
make a link to the file you want to convert, and the program “fetches” it for you. Use RSS channel editor only if you plan to create RSS feeds on a regular
basis and don’t want to install and maintain a standalone application on you system.
No matter what option you choose, you end up with a file you upload to your server space on your web site. You then need to make a link to the file on one of your web pages and publicize the link so that people find out about it. After you get the system worked out, it becomes easier to update as well as repost your files and reach a wider audience that you ever could otherwise.
Validate your RSS file to make sure that it’s in a form that news aggregators can read. An RSS file is comprised of XML commands, which need to be free of errors. Use an application such as UserLand RSS Validator (rss.scripting.com/) to make sure that your file is correctly formatted.
RSS works like this:
1. You get some content in the form of an RSS file. You have two options to obtain the content. You convert some of your own to RSS or you
obtain someone else’s RSS file.
2. You post the file on your web server.
3. You validate the XML to make sure that news aggregators can read it correctly.
4. You publicize your RSS feed in the directories that specialize in RSS listings.
5. Users around the web use programs called news aggregators, or feed readers, to subscribe to your feed. The feed reader checks automatically to
see whether the RSS file has new content since the last time it checked. If it does, the reader downloads the feed so that the end-user can read it.
6. You keep your file fresh by updating it regularly so that news aggregators continue to retrieve it for your audience.
FEEDSTER: A SEARCH ENGINE FOR RSS FEEDS
Feedster is a search engine for blogs, pod casts, and other RSS feeds and is a good place to get an overview of the syndication world. The feedster web site (www.feedster.com) shows what RSS syndication and site feeds are all about. Many of those feeds come from newspapers and other traditional news providers, who are generating their own RSS feeds.
FEEDBURNER AND OTHER RSS SYNDICATORS
Feedburner (www.feedburner.com) calls itself a “feed management provider”. It not only turns (or burns, to use the correct term), your blog into an RSS file but also helps promote it. When you create a feed, you post a XML or RSS logo on your blog that lets others know they can subscribe.
After you “burn” your feed with feedburner or another tool, you publicize it by using a directory of such feeds. Look into Syndic8 (www.syndic8.com), which is free to use.
After you have a site feed set up. You can use it to list your products on Google Base.
CREATING A RSS FEED
RSS is a way of converting the contents of a web page to an eXtensible Markup language (XML) file so that it can be read in a flash by anyone with an RSS reader software program. People subscribe to your RSS feed, and they receive it each time your site’s contents are updated.
RSS is a marketing tool that is widely used in the world of blogs. Just as a blog publisher can, you can capture an RSS feed of your sales and offer it (feed it) to customers who want to subscribe to it. If you sell through an eBay store it’s easy to get started. Follow these steps:
1. Subscribe to a feeder program, such as Feedburner (www.feedburner.com).
2. Go to your eBay store and click the Seller, Manage Store link near the bottom of the page.
3. Sign in with your User ID and Password if needed. The Manage My Store page appears.
4. In the Marketing Tools box on the left side of the window, click the RSS Feeds link. The RSS Feeds options appear.
5. Click the button next to Activate your Fixed Price Listings via RSS.
6. Click Apply.
7. Go to your store’s home page. Scroll to the bottom of the page, which has an orange button labeled RSS.
8. Click the RSS button on your page, copy the code presented, and paste it into your RSS feeder program.
9. Post the file and send it through the feeder program (see eBay seller Doors2store’s tutorial at www.doors2stores.com/resources2.html for more information).
If you don’t sell through eBay, turning your catalog listings into a RSS feed isn’t quite as simple. You need to come up with a standard description for your listings: a listing title, a description, and a hyperlink. You then format each item like this:
<item>
<title> Model 101 widget </title>
<description> check out the 101, the latest and greatest widget offering ever ! </description>
<link> http://www.mywidgetcatalog.com/widget101.html</link>
</item>
You then go to a site, such as Feed Validator (feedvaliator.org), to make sure that your formatting is correct. Then subscribe to one of the RSS readers mentioned at searchenginwatch.com/2175281. Copy your feed to the reader and distribute it. More info about creating feeds is at searchenginewatch.com/2175271.
GETTING THE SCOOP ON PODCASTS
Here are two common methods for getting a podcast out there to the public:
. Bloggers can upload their audio files to their own web hosting site and publish them directly within a blog post. Although that’s not the traditional
definition of podcasting, many people refer to this method of publishing audio files as podcasting, simply because it represents a method of online audio publishing.
. Bloggers can get accounts with radio and pod casting sites where they can not only upload their podcasts and create media RSS feeds for those
podcasts, but also bypass traditional recording methods if they choose. Example, it’s possible to create audio files by telephone thanks to new web sites
that offer easier solutions for the less technically savvy individuals who want an online radio show, a podcast, or an audio presence.
BLOGS AND RSS
The thing is, in order for a blog site to rank in a vertical search engine, it needs its own RSS feed. Bloggers using software such as WordPress, Movable Type, or Blogger have these feeds automatically created for their sites.
Other ranking features beyond having an RSS feed vary between search engines, blogs usually rank based on their own merit (content and update frequency are key), and based on however the algorithm is set up for that particular search engine. Google has a beta version of a blog vertical called Google Blog Search (blogsearch.google.com).