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RSS Revisited - Why You Still Need RSS On Your Site

08 2008 Friday

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

One of the very first articles I ever wrote on Internet Marketing had to do with RSS and it was entitled “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site.” That was in 2004 and RSS was somewhat new and many webmasters were just beginning to place blogs and RSS feeds on their sites. If you do a search in Google, you can still find that article on around 2,000 sites.

Most people now refer to RSS as “Really Simple Syndication” - although it originally stood for “Rich Site Summary” and was a very simple way of summarizing and syndicating your content in real-time to all interested parties.

RSS had its early beginnings with Netscape in 1991 which introduced the first version of RSS (RDF Site Summary). Later versions would be introduced and made popular by Dave Winer of ScriptingNews and Userland fame who is considered by many to be one of the major founding fathers of RSS.

Most people today associate RSS with blogs and blogging. You can read RSS content by using an RSS feed reader or “aggregator” which can be desktop or web-based. Some common feed readers include FeedDemon, My Yahoo!, iGoogle and Firefox (Live Bookmarks). You subscribe to your favorite RSS feed by clicking the small icon on your favorite blog or site and then when fresh content is published via RSS your reader can immediately retrieve and display it for you.

RSS is a very simple way of keeping up to date and in contact with your favorite site or topic. It makes staying informed easy to do and it provides site/blog owners a simple way of distributing their content.

One can’t but wonder has RSS lived up to all that early hype?

Perhaps that question can only be answered by looking at the popularity of blogging and the role it now plays on the web. No one can deny blogs and their accompanying RSS feeds carry tremendous weight, no matter which way you measure it. Can anyone now imagine the World Wide Web without blogs?

But the importance of RSS goes beyond just blogging, we tend to forget how important it is for all the new social media sites like Digg, Technorati, Reddit… and not to forget fast growing applications like Twitter.

People also forget RSS feeds play a major role in online retail and affiliate programs. For example, you can get an RSS feed of all the latest Amazon products to place on your site. Many major online companies now have these product feeds to help promote and sell their wares.

XML and RSS have blended so seamlessly into many browsers and operating systems most users are blissfully unaware they’re even using RSS. Maybe that’s how things should be; with RSS, the ever-present workhorse, quietly doing its job behind the scenes.

RSS is just as important now as it was five years ago - actually its influence and presence has only grown stronger over the years. If you have not fully embraced RSS and placed it on your site and in your online marketing you’re missing out on one of the best opportunities to spread your message on the web.

RSS is here to stay and even has its own advisory board to help with the technical and programming side of RSS. They also list a very handy “RSS Best Practices Profile” for any webmaster wishing to create their own XML-based RSS documents. http://www.rssboard.org/

Why should you use RSS?

Well, the list of reasons is quite long but RSS can help you: syndicate your content in real-time, sell your products, build your list, gather fresh content, promote your company and boost that one vital element everyone needs more of on the web - traffic. For those who have taken full advantage of RSS it has delivered in more ways than one for it has truly turned into that Golden Goose with the Midas complex. RSS has simply proven beneficial to those users who have fully embraced it.

Now, you still don’t really need 10 reasons to put RSS on your site, do you?

To add RSS to your Site within minutes - download this simple RSS Guide: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/RSS/Lead_Capture_Page.htm Or try this more technical RSS Tutorial: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/RSS_Tutorial.htm 2008 Titus Hoskins.

Diversify Your Product Offering and Target Demographics

08 2008 Friday

By Shiraz Madan in Featured

It’s common to see businesses obsessed with their “target demographic”. Tunnel vision leads them to blindly chase after a specific niche and pin their hopes and dreams that this ideal consumer will come knocking on the door.

The problem lies in competitive markets, where the target demographic is faced with a slew of options due to a saturated market place. What if APPLE solely focused its product development, marketing and advertising on age 18-24 year old, urban consumers?Not only would it alienate other demographics, but it would neglect other potential consumers who have a need for their products. APPLE created multiple commercials for the iPhone that showed a close up of a hand navigating through the phone with ease.

If you notice, at the end of the commercial an incoming call is made from an adult. We can see this from the photo tag that is displayed on the iPhone’s screen. Clearly, Apple was targeting an older demographic with this placement. Although many young adults will race out to purchase the iPhone’s latest release, APPLE understands the need to appeal to multiple demographics with the same product.

Another typical scenario is often seen in the nightlife. Nightclubs focus their attention on attracting women to their establishments. This is in hopes that a viral effect will take place, increasing demand from men to attend a venue where a plethora of women exist. I’m not saying this strategy doesn’t work, but solely focusing on women for a night club will be detrimental in reaching several other demographics.

Does your business burn too many resources on a single niche? Are you at high market risk due to dependence on a single demographic? If so, its time to:

A) research a secondary and tertiary market
B) research how these demographics consume
C) connect with multiple demographics

If your product happens to be a video game system you would focus on the 10-18 year old, male demographic. However, you should also create/alter your product(s) to reach the 25-35 year old male demographic that enjoyed video gaming in their younger years. We saw Nintendo achieve this when they released Mario Kart. Mario appealed to an older demographic that consumed video gaming at a much younger age with Mario Bros. The point being, don’t allow fear of untested waters or tunnel vision prevent you from reaching new consumers and experiencing longevity within the marketplace.

This post was written by SEO Design Solutions‘ VP Mr. Shiraz Madan who consistently refines the focus of our collective marketing and branding efforts through bringing fresh insight and vision to broaden our business horizons. If your business requires a fresh perspective with new eyes, then feel free to contact us at 1 (866) 471-5377 to see what opportunities exist.

What Google Wants

08 2008 Friday

By Jennifer Horowitz in Featured

There are so many articles out there on SEO and so many conflicting opinions. Some of those opinions are people just spouting off without any solid evidence to back it up and others are based on tests and experiments done by the author. It can be really confusing for someone trying to understand SEO. Who is right, who is wrong? Where should you focus your attention? Let’s answer that question by breaking things down…