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Use Social Marketing Sites To Give Your Internet Marketing Start-Up A Helping Hand

By David Hurley in Featured

While every Internet marketing start-up could benefit from social marketing sites, many newbie Internet marketers are still not sure how to utilize them.

Sure, social sites give you a lot of interactivity and allow users to personalize their sites, compile a list of favorite links, videos, music, photos, documents and share it all with friends and visitors, but how exactly does that help you develop your Internet marketing start-up business?

The first thing to understand is that there are two basic types of social networking sites, so you will need to be clear in your own mind about what it is you want to do - bookmark or network?

Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking sites allow you to build and organize your favourite links (i.e. bookmarks) AND you can choose to restrict them to selected friends or make them public and share them with everybody on the Internet.

The big advantage of social bookmarking is that your favourite links are no longer tied to one specific browser accessible from just one computer in one location.

Social bookmarking services enable users to save bookmarks on a remote web server which can be accessed anywhere where there is an online connection.

Social bookmarking sites usually categorize links with a “tagging” system which allows users to choose keywords with which to “tag” their bookmarks. Sites can then be retrieved via the tags.

You can encourage others to bookmark your articles, blogs or webpages by adding a Digg, Stumbleupon, TwitThis or other button on your page.

However, there are so many social bookmarking services, that if you added all their buttons you’d end up with more buttons than content on your page! Instead, use a service like addthis.com, which places one button on your site for a wide range of social bookmarking sites.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites offer a convenient method of connecting with people who share similar interests to you.

Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to post your advertisements and promote your products, as long as you do not simply (and stupidly) send out spam. A good site with regularly updated original content will attract traffic.

MySpace or Facebook?

It has recently been noised abroad that MySpace is no good for Internet marketing, but that is not so. It was simply a case of too many Internet marketers not knowing who their audience was.

The point is that MySpace tends to attract a younger age bracket with less money to spend than does Facebook. Get to know the sites and adapt your content to each one, don’t simply post the same stuff to both.

Another reason why some people don’t think social networking sites are good for business is that they do no more than set up a profile. Then they get stuck, don’t know what to do, do nothing. Merely being there is not enough! Find ways to communicate with the people who are there on their terms, not yours.

Go careful, though, that you don’t go overboard with the crazy applications and the “late night partying confessions” stuff if it is not the sort of thing you want your clients to see!

Whereas social bookmarking sites are simply sites for you to collect and organize your favorite links, social networking sites, being more sociable, require more time and regular fresh content updates. With social networking sites you have to work on your image!

Search Engines Love Web 2:0!

Another reason why Internet marketers should build a presence on both social bookmarking and social networking sites is because search engines LOVE them!

Search engine spiders regularly follow links posted on these sites. So, by building up your links on these sites, your website backlinks will grow, and so will your search engine rankings, which is what you need if your Internet marketing start-up is to survive, grow and thrive.

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If you found this article helpful you might like to visit http://grasp-the-nettle.com for more free articles on Internet marketing to help you master the net. You might also like to sign up to my FREE Internet Marketing Start-Up newsletter, which comes complete with a library of Internet marketing ebooks (worth a total of $136.75) for you to download free of charge. David Hurley lives in Japan, where he works as an English language consultant, editor, and Internet marketer.

Online Business Opportunities and Squidoo Lenses

By Jim Suzak in Featured

What the heck are Squidoo lenses and how can you relate them to online business opportunities? Squidoo.com is a web 2.0 website that specializes in hosting personal web pages for anyone who has 10 minutes to build one. They are referred to as “lenses” instead of website because each one focuses on a particular topic or idea.

You can create a lens for whatever reason. Whether you want to share your opinion on a particular online business opportunity or just complain about the electric company, Squidoo gives you a quick and easy venue for getting your message out to the masses. It it so easy anyone can do it.

Squidoo lenses are simple to set up, requiring absolutely no technical knowledge or programming experience. With a few clicks you can easily add youtube videos, Flicker photos, polling surveys, google blog searches, RSS and much more to your personalized lens.

In addition to providing a social outlet, Squidoo can also serve as a highly effective and risk-free marketing tool for your onlinebusiness opportunity. Below are the top 7 reasons you should create a lens to help give your online business opportunity a kick:

1. To increase traffic to your site. Squidoo lenses can include inbound links to your website, boosting your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines and increasing your overall link popularity. Plus, the lenses themselves are indexed by search engines, so your personal page can achieve a high ranking with strategic keyword placement. Get a few links to your Squidoo lens and you can easily get your lens to rank favorably in search results for some competitive keywords.

2. To save money on advertising. Unlike costly print ads and direct mail campaigns, creating a personal Squidoo page won’t cost you a dime. It takes about 10 minutes to build a Squidoo lens and you can really boost your credibility and brand yourself as an expert in your industry.

3. To highlight multiple aspects of your online business opportunity. You can create as few or as many lenses as you want. It’s possible to have hundreds of different lenses focusing on different components of your business, all driving traffic back to your website.

4. To piggyback on other Squidoo pages. When your lens is nestled among hundreds of thousands of other interesting lenses, it’s more likely to benefit from the traffic generated by those neighboring pages.

5. To sell stuff. A great way to get your feet wet in the e-commerce arena, Squidoo lets you sell items from Ebay and Amazon and earn royalties from each sale. It also lets you have direct affiliate links to any of the affiliate programs you endorse.

6. To conduct surveys for your business. Squidoo pages are a great way to gauge consumer attitudes and reactions to new products and services. The Squidoo polling feature is really easy to set up and allows you to survey your customers.

7. To interact with potential consumers. Visitors to your lens can add their comments and links. Every time an update is made, it makes your lens that much more appealing and relevant to search engines.

If you’re still unsure about Squidoo, ask yourself just one question: what do you have to lose? It’s free and easy, which are two of the most desirable qualities for anyone promoting an online business opportunity! I highly recommend it!

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Jim Suzak is a professional internet marketer that utilizes several high quality online business opportunities and has achieved residual income success through this method. Check-out his website Residual Income Opportunities for more details and get your FREE online income opportunities newsletter, so you can also realize your dreams while working in the comfort of your home. –> http://www.DynamicInternetProfits.com

What People Aren’t Saying About Social Media

By Jennifer Horowitz in Featured

Social Media, Social Networking, Leveraging Web 2.0 - it’s known by many names and it’s all the rage!

Let me start by saying I am a fan of social media, I personally choose to participate in social media. However when you read about social media, you often only hear one side of things - the message is clear - Participate or miss out! And while I do believe that is true, I think it’s not always that simple.

There is so much to read, so many different opinions. It can be overwhelming. First you have to decide which sites to participate in and then you have to create your account and learn how to participate. It’s often confusing.

I am not saying this is an excuse not to participate. In fact I am writing this article to provide some helpful tips so you can participate. .

I think attention to the details is really important, so I want to cover all the small items that people aren’t really talking much about.

Facebook: I started on Facebook as a way to connect with old friends. I had all kinds of games and the crazy apps (applications) that Facebook offers. When I started networking for business I realized that all my business connections were going to have access to all of this personal information - photos, wall posts, they’d know which Sex and the City character I was most like (if you’ve spent any time on Facebook you’ve likely seen this app on people’s profile).

I understand that using social media to open up and connect with people is one of the benefits. Allowing prospective clients to get to know you helps build trust and relationships.

But do I really want people to see every little silly app I mess around with? Do I want them to see the crazy pics from high school that have been posted?

Ultimately I decided to clean off some of the silliness that wasn’t really important to me and I left the rest. I figured if I’m opening the door and letting people peek in, there is no point in censoring anything. So I jumped in and started adding “Friends” that were business connections.

Of course if you are only using Facebook for business, then you don’t have to think about these issues. If you do plan to use it for both - just spend a few minutes thinking about what you do and don’t want to share.

Twitter: Make sure you think about what name is best for you. I chose EcomBuffet (my company name) but have now realized that people are searching for me by my full name and not finding me. I would have been better off choosing my name. Not a major issue, but something to consider if you haven’t picked your name on Twitter yet.

There are varying opinions about how often you can Twitter (or tweet) and not annoy people. Some people say once per hour, others say once a day. There is no hard rule about this. You do want to consider it carefully though. If you tweet too often, people may get annoyed and stop following you all together, or just remove their cell phone updates. That means when you have important updates, people aren’t going to get them at all or as quickly as they could have. You want to find a balance. For me, I have been tweeting about once a day. On some days when I have more to share, I may tweet a few times day. Every time you tweet, ask yourself if it is really information people will want to know. If you are sure every tweet is useful and serves a purpose then you can tweet a little more often. If it’s fluff and all self-promotional, then you should probably do it less (or not all some may say).

Social bookmarking buttons: There are so many buttons you can add to your articles for people to bookmark or vote for your content. Digg, StumbleUpon, RSS Feeds, TwitThis etc - My concern is that we are adding so many different options and people become so accustomed to seeing them that they ignore them. And with so many buttons people may get confused and just ignore them. I don’t know what the solution is for this yet. I previously wasn’t using any of these buttons. I realize I am missing out because of that, so I am now going to selectively use them. I don’t have a perfect plan in mind, I am just going to play with using some of the more popular ones and see what happens.

MySpace versus Facebook: There is a lot of confusion about the MySpace versus Facebook issue. The general consensus is that MySpace has been trashed and isn’t worth the time. That isn’t entirely true. There are still people making money off MySpace. The key to remember is that MySpace is a younger crowd with a lower income and Facebook has a higher income and is older. The best thing you can do is study both - see what others in your industry are doing, see how you see yourself fitting in and most importantly, come up with a plan. So many people just jump in and set up a profile and then don’t know what to do next. Just being there doesn’t mean the money is going to pour in. You need to engage people, you need to come up with something that people will want to see, hear or read.

Is it too late to join now? The answer is no! Studies show that most of the social media sites are growing in popularity and traffic and participation is increasing month over month. Just remember, the rules change as these sites evolve, so be sure you are current on what is and isn’t acceptable participation.

Check it out; see how you think you can fit into the space. But remember its not all about how you will benefit. If you don’t have something to offer (information, resources, insights, news etc) then people aren’t going to be interested.

How does all of this really help me make money? Consumers are much more educated and demand much more than they used to. We are all hit with so many sales messages daily; we start to tune them out. What used to work doesn’t work (or at least not as well). In order for your business to succeed and grow, you need to adapt.

People are looking for more information and companies they can trust. Selling has become more about creating trust and building relationships.

Social media helps you connect and establish trust. Any one social media activity may not lead directly to a sale in any given moment, but it helps you establish a presence online; and in your prospects mind. If you get yourself out there and share information, you will increase your following and have a base of people that trust you that you can market to.

That covers it for now. Keep the questions coming in!

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Over the past 10 years Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on SEO and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet

Faceless Communication

By Robert Cerff in Featured

“If you can’t stand in front of your target, reading what you’ve written aloud, you have no right to it.” - Frank Watson

After reading countless articles on social media, and sadly more recently of the tale of Megan Meier, it would seem that the bad element of society thrives on the safety of being anonymous. So often I’ve looked at blog postings, or more specifically the comments left by unnamed visitors, and wondered if those people would actually be able to say what they do to someone else face to face.

Sell Social Media So That Your Clients Can Buy It!

By Jennifer Osborne in Featured

As social media moves beyond early adapters to become more mainstream, Marketers are beginning to realize the tremendous opportunities in SMM.

Marketers need to start allocating budget over but to do so requires more reason than just intuitively “knowing” that it’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately marketers are currently ill equipped to sell social media internally to their stakeholders.

Part of our role as Social Media Marketers is to explain social media to our clients so that they can in turn “sell” it internally to their stakeholders. When I talk about social media with a client, I break it down into easily understandable pieces. In essence, a formula….

Traffic for beginners: Social Networking

By Erik Stafford in Featured

Let’s face it: it’s a big Internet out there, with millions and millions of websites. How are you going to get people to come to yours?

Social Networking

Social Networking websites are basically community websites. These are communities, on the internet, that you join and then search for people within the community with similar interests as you.

Some Social Networking websites are very small and focused, so by definition the people who join such websites are already members of a tightly focused interest group.

Such a group might be brought together by their political or religious beliefs. Or it could be something such as their hobbies, like… they love Ford Mustangs! Or making cheesecake! Sports or basically anything else that mankind has found it possible to be interested in!

So, in such a tightly focused group, almost all members without exception will be interested in the one common thing.

However, there are many other community websites where the only real common interest that most of the members could possibly ever have with one another is that they are all, members of the same site!

This is simply a function of the size and therefore the diversity of the websites in question, with websites like MySpace and FaceBook having literally millions of members all over the globe. (107 and 73 million members respectively).

Such websites generally have a membership that is wide open. Meaning that anyone can become a member, no matter what their hobbies, beliefs, or views are.

Thus, there is no general community wide commonality of beliefs or interests either.

It is therefore only natural that once you are a member, inside this online community, you can begin to create your own network of friends. Those people that have similar interest and/or beliefs to you and the products you are promoting.

This is where it gets interesting for you as an Internet Marketer!

Whatever your interests, given so many millions of members, then there inevitably will be others that have similar interests, people that you could potentially ‘bond’ with immediately. People who become prospects due to the commonality in interests.

For example, a MySpace search using the phrase ‘Crocheting’ returns plenty of results. All of them are people who might be interested in your website from a direct ‘match’ of my search term to the specific subject topic of my website.

However, run a search for a more generic (and broader) term like Internet Marketing, and you get 45,400 results. I know what your thiking… OMG how overwhelming! Take a deep breath and continue listening!

Now, it is a very reasonable assumption that anyone who is interested in Internet Marketing is trying to sell something on the web, and that they therefore need traffic to their website.

So, of course, these people would be legitimate ‘target prospects’ for what I am trying to promote.

Take it one stage further and use single word search ‘marketing’ and it returns 549,000 results.

Again, it is reasonable to assume that all of these people are at least interested in bringing their products or services to the marketplace, so, once again, traffic generation could be of immense interest to them.

So, all I need to do is to tell them about the great resource that I have available, and the deal is done… right?

Err… no! Not really… Unless the “deal” that you are talking about is having your MySpace account closed down immediately!

The thing is that the folks who run MySpace really do not want their ‘community site’ turning into a commercial free-for-all. A sort of online bazaar, and they will go to any lengths to protect their site.

So, you cannot just open your account one day and start bombarding people with your commercial messages the next.

It’s the same with any quality forum site. You have to establish yourself as a valid contributing member before you can start promoting your products. Once you have yourself established, then you can add a signature file with a redirect to a sales site, you must establish yourself on community websites too.

So, the first thing that you must do is to take some time and make an effort to create a proper profile, something that shows that there is a real person behind the newly opened account.

Then, you must start looking for ‘friends’ in the MySpace community, but you must do so gradually, as you are limited to so many friend invitations a day. Even if you weren’t inviting a thousand new friends a day… It hardly looks natural or normal. Does it?

Put it this way - if you saw that someone was inviting 1000 new friends a day, would you perhaps thinks that there was something a little bit strange or artificial about this person?

Yes - of course you would.

So, start out by becoming a real member of the community before you start promoting products. That is the bottom line.

Sure… By all means begin to invite people to be your friends, but do spend a little time getting to know them and building up a relationship before trying to get them interested or sell them in your business.

Now, the great thing about a blog site is that it is pretty natural that, after you have been someone’s ‘friend’ for a while, that you might invite them to take a look at your blog.

That is far less threatening and direct than asking them to look at a ‘full-on’ sales page, for example.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter what community site you are a member of, the secret is go gently and slowly, build relationships and try to nurture something at least vaguely like a ‘real’ friendship before trying to get people to visit your business themed blog site.

Use your common sense and the skills listed here and you should have success in making friends and prospects on social networking sites.

Erik Stafford is the creator of The Faster Webmaster, which shows beginners the fast, easy, affordable way to build their own website. You can visit Erik online at http://www.thefasterwebmaster.com

HubPages Equals Free Traffic

By Jack Humphrey in Featured

Many of you may have heard of Squidoo which is a competitor of Hubpages.com. Basically both of them are a “free-hosted community of content producers”. Both Squidoo and Hubpages can be “grouped” into the Web 2.0 movement - where user generated content rules.

If you are already familiar with Squidoo, the your entrance into working with Hubpages will be very straightforward. Both Squidoo and Hubpages SHARE REVENUE with their content creators.

What Makes Them Similar, Yet Different?

From HubPages.com: “Hubpages purpose is to provide easy-to-use tools and traffic to help anyone to produce content and monetize their knowledge by creating webpages. There will be monetization programs to choose from consisting of products, advertisements and lead generation tools that each person can easily incorporate into their pages.

Hubpages will split revenue with the content creator. The pages are organized in the Hubpages website based on algorithmic quality index that promotes the best pages throughout the hierarchy (based on tags) of the website.

Each author will earn a reputation score called a HubScore that can be referenced to meter the quality of the content by an author. Hubpages will be positioned to take advantage of the significant numbers of new web content providers that want to supplement their income through content like many people do on eBay by selling goods.”

From Squidoo: “We divide up the money we receive in a very public way. First, we pay our bills. That’s direct out of pocket expenses like rent and servers and salary and benefits expenses (our CEO doesn’t take a salary, and neither does our board of directors).

Then, with no other deductions, we pay 5% of our post-expense revenue directly to the charity pool, 50% directly to our lensmasters and retain the rest to pay off investors and employees.”

So, other than the obvious revenue sharing, is there any other reason to consider using Hubpages? YES! As Hubpages is considered an authority by Google, you are able to make money with the Google Adsense that is on your hubpage.

Developing content on Hubpages should become an important part of your overall web marketing / promotional strategies.

In addition to your actual ‘hubs’ ranking on the various search engines, you can link directly to your other websites! And guess what? These backlinks are being ‘counted’.

So Hubpages can help you strengthen your entire marketing presence and ‘network of sites’. One of the best things about creating Hubpages and Squidoo lenses is that it can be outsourced.

Outsource the writing, and by doing so, you free up your time to create more Hubpages. Another great aspect of any free content hosting site, is that they have already built-in traffic from other members, and if you are applying your linking knowledge to this, you will be creating tons of back links…Power Linking!

Web 2.0 properties such as Hubpages and Squidoo have become an important part of our overall traffic strategy and works well in any niche market.

Remember, your competitors are most likely NOT on Hubpages so it is still a ‘land grab’.

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Jack Humphrey is one of the web’s leading social marketing experts. He teaches his social media marketing tactics at Social Power Linking and blogs about social marketing and blog marketing at the Friday Traffic Report.

SEO for Web 2.0

By Michael Small in Featured

Ever since whispers of Web 2.0 started in 2004, rumors have flown fast and furious. Within two weeks of Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Reilly Media) coining the phrase, there were over 100 guesstimated definitions for Web 2.0. So what is it? Web 2.0 is basically the concept of using the Internet for bigger business purposes than simple Websites. It includes a wide range of areas like shared multi media, social networking, online collaboration and adding the human factor back in to the Web.

Primary tools of Web 2.0 include video sharing sites such as YouTube; Wiki sites like Wikipedia; blogs and various “live face” technologies. We’ll cover three of the fastest and easiest ways to optimize for Web 2.0, beginning with blogs.

1.) SEO for Blogs

Optimizing a blog is one of the absolute best ways to capture Google’s most coveted top spots very quickly. You can hit number 1 on Google in a matter of days. Here’s how you do it…

1. First, find a good blogging tool. There are plenty out there. I use WordPress (http://www.WordPress.org.) I originally picked it because it was so quick and easy to setup. And soon I realized the platform does 50% of SEO by its very nature. It’s free and you can get thousands of themes, to fit any style you wish, also for free.
2. Next, make sure your hosting provider can support your blog. I’ve never seen one that can’t. If you are starting fresh, do a Google search for “WordPress blog hosting” and you’ll find great packages that only cost $25 for a whole year. Just avoid the freebie hosts since you are almost guaranteed to be sharing server space (and likely an IP range) with sites banned by Google, which can cost you your ranking.
3. Once your blog app is installed, turn on the “permalink” option from the control panel. This ensures each posting you enter will also get its own URL. And finally, start entering postings of 200 words or more, focusing on only one or two keywords per post. Try to begin each post title with the primary keyword for that topic.
4. To best optimize your keywords and content follow the steps outlined in SEO cbt’s release “Google Domination” (http://www.SEOcbt.com). This is a free computer based training module for SEO do it yourselfers that works extremely well. It was not written specifically for blogs but all the information is perfectly suited to them.

Inside Tip: Register your domain name for a five year period or longer. Just extend it if needed. Google has been known to check “whois” records and assumes the longer the domain is registered in advance, the more “real” the site is.

2.) SEO for YouTube Videos

YouTube accounts for more than 60% of ALL online videos watched in the US. And your YouTube videos can be found in Google’s search results just like any normal Web page. This means they can rank number 1 in just days, with the right SEO.

If you’re looking to capitalize on SEO for Web 2.0, this is a fast and free way to do it. I won’t get into how to upload the videos and optimize the frame size, etc. That said; let’s assume you have signed up for your free account at YouTube.com and are ready to upload your first video using their easy to follow instructions. This is all the SEO you need to know…

1. When forming your title, think in terms of “long tail” keywords, meaning keyword phrases of three or more words. Be sure these are in the same order people would search for them (eg/ “long tail keywords” not “keywords long tail.”) Also try to anticipate what the user will type in his search. “How to” is one of the most common search phrases people use in Google and YouTube to get answers quick.
2. Think of “tags” as keywords and enter them like you would the Meta keyword tag of a web page. Select only the most likely search terms people are using and keep the words in the order people use them. Don’t just use random words separated by commas. Use full length search phrases exactly how people search for them. And don’t go too crazy here. Excessive tags tend to confuse the YouTube engine. Incidentally, if you have “how to” as a tag, also add “howto” (without the space.) If “how to” returns a bunch of unrelated junk your “howto” tag can better cut to the chase in YouTube’s search engine.
3. The description is where you have the most freedom. It’s best to begin the description with your main keyword (and title) as close to the beginning as possible. Something like this works well… “Learn how to…” then follow up with several sentences rich in long tail keywords (the same ones from your tags.) Grammar is not the most important thing in the world but try to make it friendly for people who might read the description before they decide to watch the video. Also remember that Google uses a natural text algorithm that can spot unnatural keyword spamming a mile away.

Real Life Example: I just saw a commercial on TV for a spy movie and someone threw a knife. I went to Google and entered “how to throw a knife” (without quotes.) The top three matches include a YouTube video and Wiki entry. Wow! Welcome to Web 2.0!

3.) SEO Using “Live Face” Technology

One of the biggest reasons for the dot com crash of ‘01 was that Websites became way too impersonal. One of Web 2.0’s strengths is the ability to help people relate to people once again. And one of the hottest technologies leading the way is “Live Face.”

Live Face allows a video spokesperson to meet, greet and inform your Web page visitors. As far as SEO benefits, any sort of video has usually involved heavy RealTime or Flash files that block search engine spiders and hurt rankings. Now however, there are services like Live Face for Web (http://www.LivefaceForWeb.com) that can add full length videos to your site without it interfering with onsite SEO one bit (due to the file’s location) while greatly enhancing offsite efforts such as acquiring the highest quality one way and reciprocal links.

Most sites employing this technology report conversion increases of up to 5x. This means they are converting up to five times the number of sales they did before using Live Face technology.

Real Life Example: The SEOcbt.com site mentioned earlier uses Live Face for Web and they hit number one on Google for all of their major keywords within two weeks of site launch.

That’s a good start to SEO for Web 2.0. Good luck!

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Mike Small is a ten year veteran SEO specialist with thousands of top search engine rankings to his credit. He is the author of seven SEO books and founder of SEOpartner.com.

Increase Website Visibility Using RSS

By Rob Emmerson in Featured

Using RSS helps to streamline the communication between publishers and their readers. RSS has had a surge in popularity, so webmasters have started to experiment using RSS to deliver their content in new and creative ways.

RSS feeds usually contain a headline and a summary of the content. The summary of the content contains enough information get the attention and interest of the reader without overwhelming them. If the reader wants more information, they can simply click a link in the feed and access the website that has all the details.

RSS readers combine the information from multiple feeds. This makes it easy and convenient for individuals to quickly browse the information from many sources. Feeds are generally themed, which allows readers to subscribe to feeds that interest them.

One of the biggest benefits of RSS, is the ability of individuals to opt-in only to feeds of interest. This gives total control of what information is received to the user. If the quality of a feed goes down, or they simply are no longer interested, a user could just remove the feed from the RSS reader. There is no subscribing or un-subscribing to deal with, when the feed is removed no further information is received from that feed. An RSS reader also compiles all the information from multiple sources to one area. this allows the user to quickly view many content streams without having to go to multiple locations or emails.

RSS is a great tool for publishers as well. It frees the publisher from maintaining lists, worrying about privacy rules, spam or age guidelines. At the same time it provides the publisher a vehicle for communication to a highly targeted audience.

Publishers can use RSS to deliver keyword rich, themed content. This will help establish trust and build the publishers reputation with new and established customers.

Here is a sample of what can be delivered with RSS:

Blogs, many blogs utilize a RSS feed. Each blog post is summarized and broadcast as a feed item. This makes it easier for interested readers to scan blog posts for specific items of interest.

Articles, many articles are placed into RSS feeds and sent to readers informing them of new content. Generally, the feed consists of the article title and a brief summary or introduction of the article. RSS users can then decide to follow the link to the complete article.

Forum Feed, some forums are now allowing users to get new posts through RSS feed. The feed will usually show the latest topic of discussion. If users are interested in posting replies, or reading more, they can simply click to go directly to the forum discussion. As the forum discussion continues the RSS feed is updated and readers see the latest updates on the topic.

Organizations Schedules, many clubs, schools and groups use RSS to communicate everything from meetings to events that are coming up. The feed used to publicize these events also notify the community.

Retail Sale or Special Feed. Both online and traditional stores have started using RSS feeds to deliver news of special offers and sales to customers. Some online marketers have stepped this up by allowing users to customize a feed with keywords or phrases that they choose.

RSS feeds have been adapted to many industries and the usefulness of RSS is growing every day. RSS is now being used to market, promote and communicate to a variety of audiences. The ease of use and user friendly make up of RSS has helped many organizations to expand their reach to new audiences and customers. RSS is fast becoming the communication vehicle for many businesses and with the increase of popularity will come ever more creative uses for this communication vehicle.

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Rob Emmerson is a leading expert in SEO and has written extensivly on the subject in articles and eBooks. He offers a free SEO Course for individuals interested in improving their websites. in addition he writes a daily Blog on SEO where he shares tips and tricks.

RSS Feeds and RSS Aggregators

By admin in Featured

Reading RSS Feeds with an RSS Aggregator RSS or Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary is the latest information management tool that is gradually earning popularity among web users and website owners. With RSS technology, it is possible to get the latest postings from your favorite websites. But clicking on the RSS or XML button in a homepage is not enough to give you the service you need. An RSS feed or code displayed in the pop-up screen if not on the main page is composed of symbols and words that would only make sense to advanced RSS users and computer programmers and software enthusiasts. Another software tool called an RSS aggregator or reader is needed.

An aggregator works by scanning the worldwide web with latest postings based on the RSS code (containing the website’s URL) provided or added by the user. When it finds a new posting, news, or update, it will publish the RSS feed on your home page containing the title of the posting, which also serves as a clickable link to the website source. This RSS feed may or may not contain the whole article, a summary, and photos, depending on what RSS aggregator you are using.

Aggregators come in two types: the downloadable program or desktop-type and the online or web-based type. The desktop aggregator usually charges a certain amount for its services; this would include regular updating in the form of upgrades or patches to the original version. This type of RSS reader allows more customization of RSS feeds as well as page format or design over its on-line counterparts. But of course, price can be a drawback.

On-line or web-based aggregators are free of charge. All you need to do is register an account with them then you can start enjoying their services. Depending on the “brand” of the aggregator, customization is more limited. Some even do not allow you to customize at all.

Product and service advertisers are realizing the potential of RSS aggregators in internet marketing. In fact, several submit RSS codes to several popular web-based aggregators to reach the growing technophile and internet-based market. My Yahoo has been instrumental in popularizing RSS technology to both users and website owners and advertisers.

At present, there are many aggregators to choose from and newer versions of the same aggregator are constantly developed by its programmers.

Below are some of these desktop and online aggregators: Desktop Aggregators 1. AmphetaDesk Advantages: - free - supports Linux, Mac, and Windows - easy addition of RSS feeds

Disadvantages: - not maximized use of screen display - few options for customizing

2. FeedDemon Advantages: - user friendly - free trial version - contains prepared popular feeds - allows filtering of RSS feeds - configurable “watch list” to manage junk RSS feeds - search channel feature that incorporates other RSS services e.g. Feedster - allows feed storage for future use - tabbed browsers for channel navigation - built-in podcast receiver

Disadvantages: - supports only Internet Explorer (embedded) - paid software (`$29.95)

Online Aggregators 1. Bloglines Advantages: - all major browsers supported (e.g. Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Firefox) - user-friendly especially for beginners - free, web-based aggregator - easy registration - no advertisements - contains its own directory of RSS feeds of thousands of websites - personal email account for subscribing to newsletter emails (optional) - allows privacy adjustments for personal blogs - allows saved searches - mobile version available - 10 languages supported - Additional add-on tools for automated blogrolls and subscription buttons

2. NewsGator Advantages: - free (consumer-standard version) - provides personalized news channel - allows translation of RSS articles into email format - synchronization of feeds in several devices possible - browse and search feed capabilities save time on surfing - allows keyword filtering - blog headlines - button-click automatic subscription to news feeds

Disadvantage: - Outlook-based thus limited to Windows

3. My Yahoo Advantages: - Free web-based aggregator - user-friendly - customizable home page design - button-click subscription to RSS feeds - built-in directory and search tool for feeds - wide variety of feeds e.g. news (science, technology, local), weather - connects to all Yahoo features and services

Disadvantage - banner advertisements

There are also lightweight RSS aggregator extensions which are actually plug-ins to existing internet browsers. An example of which is Sage aggregator.

Advantages: - free of charge - beginner-friendly - reeds both RSS and Atom feeds - allows feed discovery - can be assimilated to Firefox bookmark (storage and live) - allows OPML feed lists imports and exports - customizable style sheets - supports a wide range of locales e.g. Catalan, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Polish, Slovenian, etc. - easy installation

Disadvantages: - good for about 12 RSS feeds - limited use to Mozilla-Firefox and Mozilla-Firefox supported browsers

RSS developers promise better features in future versions of their aggregators. Microsoft is planning to include a built-in aggregator in their next Windows version. These developments are definitely something to look forward to by all internet aficionados.

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