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Small Businesses Using RSS Feeds
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This article is divided into three main sections, answering "what is RSS?", explaining how small businesses are using RSS feeds, and finally a few examples of businesses using RSS feeds in the real world.
What is RSS
RSS is an acronym that stands for “Real Simple Syndication”. RSS is a tool that allows users to gather and access frequently updated online content such as news, stocks, blogs, podcasts, etc. RSS is a real time saver when you need to check content from multiple sites. For example, traditionally, if you needed to check the news headlines of the major news sources such as the New York Times, the BBC, CNN and several other sources you would have to navigate to each site to access the headlines. With RSS you can save yourself a lot of time and remove the need to visit multiple sites by subscribing to each news website’s RSS feed. By subscribing to each news website’s RSS feed you can get all your content delivered to your email mailbox or to a personal website such as your home page. Now you have all your headlines ready to read in one easy to access location.
With RSS you can either be a “publisher” or a “subscriber”. A RSS publisher is someone who creates and posts the content for the RSS feed on the web. A subscriber is the recipient of the publisher’s feed.
If you use a web mail client such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail then you may already be using RSS. Web mail clients such as these allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds from within the mail client and have the content delivered to your mailbox.
Practical Reasons for Small Businesses Using RSS Feeds
News Headlines
Typically, the main use of RSS is to deliver the top news headlines to subscribers. By creating an RSS feed on your site RSS subscribers can gain access to your company press releases, site updates, or anything else that you deem news worthy.
Upcoming Events
RSS is a great way to let people know of events and activities that may be happening soon. It's easy to turn an "events" page into an RSS feed.
Articles
Articles allow you to share what you know. By creating a resource of information for visitors to your website you are more likely to attract repeat traffic and build an audience. Setup an RSS feed so that subscribers can receive the latest and greatest articles from your site.
New Products
If you have an online store a RSS feeds is a great way to let customers know what has just come in.
Weekly/Monthly Specials
If you regularly offer special promotions on your products then a RSS feed is an excellent way to tell people what is on special this week or this month.
Newsletters
If you habitually send out an email newsletter then consider converting it to RSS format as well as continuing to email it.
New Links
If you have a directory of links you may consider creating an RSS feed of the new links added to your directory in the last week or so. If you have a category structure within that directory, with links added often, you can create a feed for each category.
Ticker RSS Feeds
If you have timely information that is constantly changing such as stock prices or sport scores that you want to share with your customers then a RSS feed is an excellent solution. Automate the process with software and RSS can feed new critical information on an hourly basis or more frequently if needed.
Real World Examples of Small Businesses Using RSS Feeds
Here is rental company using RSS to post new rental listings:
http://www.westsiderentals.com/rss/rss.cfm
This solar information Portal uses RSS to push news from their site:
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/syndicate
This Golf Comapny uses RSS feeds all over their site to post specials and new products:
http://www.golfcircuit.com/
Sources:
Wikipedia.com -RSS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
xml.com –What is RSS?
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html
By Joe Proto for
BusinessCreatorPro.com
Posted 06.11.06
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