Increased Web Site Traffic
using RSS and Blogging

Relatively few people have heard of blogs, much less RSS. These two techniques, however can lead to a substantial increase in traffic, subscriptions, and sales for your website. You need to learn about these techniques, and if you implement them while they are still relatively new, you'll be ahead of the vast majority of your competition, and enjoy substantially increased web site traffic.

Let's jump in and learn. A Blog is simply a web page that is updated frequently with fresh content, usually of a topical nature, and with the entries short and to the point. Blogs initially came into favor a few years ago, and were usually housed on major blogging sites. There really is nothing to stop you, however, from developing your own mini-site that is nothing more than a blog, or from maintaining a blog page on an existing site, which is what I do. For an example of the latter, check out my internet marketing blog.

So what's the big deal? Well, for one thing, as people become interested in your blog, they tend to bookmark your site and perhaps tell their friends about it. For another, you can list your blog on any number of blog directories, with a resultant increase in visits to your blog, as well as links to your site, the latter contributing to your page rank. Search engines love blogs, because of the constantly updated content. There is a natural tendency, therefor, for the search engine spiders to visit your entire site more often, and to rank you higher, because your site provides fresh content on a regular basis.

You can use your blog to advertise, disseminate topical information of interest to your visitors, review products and services with which you are affiliated, or provide an outlet for your opinions on any subject. You can post "teaser" items that link to longer articles, or to an online newsletter. You can build a mailing list of people interested in being notified whenever your blog is updated. The latter can be a goldmine, because you then have a mailing list of people that you *know* are interested in the topic on which you blog, and you then have an opportunity to promote related products to them through email marketing.

Now then, what is RSS? Simply put, it's a syndicated news feed that "broadcasts" headlines and short news items, which usually contain links to your blog, or to your main site. RSS is usually said to refer to "Really Simple Syndication", but some people claim it means "Rich Site Summary". In either case, the technology is child's play to implement, and can result in a substantial increase in web site traffic, subscribers, and sales, in much the same way a blog does.

Unlike a blog, which is posted as a standard HTML web page, RSS uses a simple markup language called XML. The resulting RSS/XML pages, such as my internet marketing news feed look strange when viewed with a regular web browser, but when viewed in an RSS Reader they appear as a series of headlines and short articles that are updated regularly. A major news organization might update an RSS feed hourly, while a web site owner might only post new items on his or her RSS feed every few days or weeks.

Having an RSS feed, which is really nothing more than a special web page, can be a goldmine. As with a blog, you submit your RSS page to various RSS directories, and get resulting links and exposure for your site. People using RSS readers can then subscribe to your feed, and their reader will notify them whenever there is a fresh post on your feed. As with a blog, this means more and more frequent visitors to your site, and more visits by the search engine spiders.

While traditional marketing methods such as search engine positioning, pay per click strategies, and email marketing certainly are not dead, they are becoming more and more competitive and expensive, and email marketing, in particular, is becoming more restricted. Spam filters, and the reluctance of potential customers to sigh up for mailing lists, make it increasingly difficult to market successfully via email. Just as banner advertising was once very popular, but is now largely ineffective, email marketing may well go the same way.

Using the latest marketing techniques, such as blogs and RSS only makes sense, and is the wave of the future for those who plan to succeed in online marketing. You can learn more about RSS and blogs here, and/or visit my new website and check out my recently published blogging guide.

As always, good luck in your endeavors!