RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication”. It’s syndication that’s really simple. Understood? No? Of course there is slightly more to it than its name might suggest, but in essence what RSS provides is a one stop shop for all your favorite news, tweets and blog content.
RSS is a shortcut method of trawling through all the numerous blogs, magazines and other websites you visit on a daily basis, and collecting the most recent material. RSS feeds place this info in a single location that you can browse at your leisure. Instead of you going to the news, the news comes to you.
These RSS feeds allow users to subscribe to their favorite news sites and have all of their headlines assembled in one place. This is achieved using an RSS Reader, which is the sole location where all subscriptions are sent. Popular online readers include My Yahoo!, Bloglines or Google Reader. These services are typically free and easy to access; simply open an account, provide an email address and you’re all set.
The process to add a subscription to your reader is also very straightforward. Simply subscribing to a site will have all of its new content sent to your reader. Most sites have an easy to locate RSS button that will easily integrate their news feed into your chosen reader. Simply click the link to subscribe, and your reader will automatically update every time that site puts out a new piece of content.
From an online marketing perspective this technology can prove helpful, especially if one has a company (or personal) blog. Setting up an RSS feed with the blog will help drive traffic to the website and other sites may copy your articles and post them on their own blogs, which will provide useful backlinks that benefit your website’s search engine placement.
With uses ranging from simple news monitoring and information gathering to research and archiving, RSS feeds are a flexible and simple way to gather information on any topic that you may be interested in. Whether you use them to draw attention to your own site, or to monitor the output of another, RSS feeds can be utilized and enjoyed by internet users of all sorts.
Michael Spooner writes on behalf of inSegment, Boston’s leader in search engine marketing, internet marketing, and the home of Boston SEO.
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