RSS - Really Super Scary? Nope :)

Someone in the conversation throws out how you should be using RSS feeds on your website and you nod along agreeably. But internally, you are flipping out. What is an RSS feed? How much more is it going to cost me? Am I losing money because I don't have one? Gasp!

Deep breaths. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" - they wouldn't name something "really simple" if it wasn't - right? We have all heard the term "Syndication" used in television. When a program is syndicated, it just means whoever created the show is pushing it to various stations at the request (or purchase) of the station. Not rocket science here.

RSS is the same thing. It is just content that is wrapped up in an easy-to-pass-along gift box for others to use. So how can you use RSS to your own benefit? There are a few ways:

First is using RSS feeds to display other websites' information on your own website. For example, if you have a sports website and want to show all of the headlines from Google News about sports you could display another website's RSS feed on your page. Every time someone viewed your page they would see the newest sports headlines from Google News. The good thing about this is your website always has updated content without you having to lift a finger. When Google updates their RSS feed, your website is automatically updated as well. The bad thing is search engines don't like duplicate content so even though your website always has new content, it doesn't really help you in the search engines because it is the exact same content that appears on tons of websites (any that have a Google News RSS feeds embedded on their site) - there is nothing unique about it.

If you've heard the term "RSS Reader" it is refering to something very similar to these "display" websites. The only difference is that instead of the webmaster defining what content you will see, you define what you want to see in your reader. So if you use Yahoo RSS Reader for your reader you can set it up to only view sports headlines from Google News, FoxSports headlines, and maybe NFL.com. Every time you log into your reader, you will see the newest stories put out by those websites. RSS readers are just a way to stay on top of all of your favorite websites without having to visit each one individually. You simply define which websites you want to keep on top of, subscribe to their RSS feed, and then every time you open your reader you see all content from all of the websites in 1 place.

The second way for a small business to use RSS is to be the source of the new content. In the above example, Google News was the source of the new content. They added brand new content, then pushed it to all websites and readers that had a Google News RSS feed on it. This is EXTREMELY good for search engines, because your content is always unique. Any small company can begin publishing content regularly and using RSS to push it to others. The best example is by keeping a company blog. For example, take http://www.nyrealestatelawblog.com/. They are updating their content constantly and pushing it to other websites/readers. Those buttons along the right hand side are actually subscribe buttons for various RSS Readers. So if Person A uses Yahoo Reader as their reader, they use the My Yahoo button to add NYRealEstateLawBlog to their reader. Then every time they open their reader they will see the newest content from NYRealEstateLawBlog.com. If Person B uses ATOM as their reader they use the "Atom Feed" button to add this website to their reader.

A few snippets of code on your website and BAM - you have now joined the ranks of the cool people offering RSS on their website! The only thing to keep in mind when pushing content is your audience will only be as interested as your content is interesting. No one wil subscribe to an RSS that has no value. Therefore, make sure to keep the topics unique and the update often to make them want to keep following you.

Click 'Here' To Be Ambiguous

Imagine you are in a store and you see aisles labeled "Milk", "Sugar", "Fruits", etc. The next store you go into has its aisles labeled "Aisle 1", "Aisle 2", "Aisle 3", etc. Which one will give you more confidence that you are heading in the right direction for what it is you need?

With websites these "aisle labels" are called Anchor Text (also known as Link Text). It is the words you physically place your mouse over and click on to go somewhere else. And believe it or not, these seemingly simple words have a big impact on search engines both inside and outside or your website.

Search engines are just machines. They can only decipher what something is about based on how well it follows the pre-defined rules, not because it can read and comprehend the content. However, somewhere along the line the search engine programmers got smart. They may not have time to read every website that passes through their database, but other people do.

Externally, if someone links to your website then there is a good chance they read your content. The search engine looks to these people to help define what your website is really about. Since the search engine assumes only the link directly pointing to you is actually about you, it looks at the text used when linking to your website to get a clue as to what Website A believes your site to be about.

For example, if Website A said "check out this post about finding keywords" then the search engine would assume by clicking the words "finding keywords" it would land on a page about "finding keywords".

Seems simple, right? However, how many times have you seen this: "Click here to read about finding keywords"? People do this all of the time - both inside of their website and when linking to other websites. A search engine will look at this and think "the page I will get to from clicking this link is about 'here'". This doesn't help strengthen what the page is truly about in the search engine's mind.

In your website, each page should be targeting 2-4 main keywords (more about this later). So every time a link is pointing to that page, make sure at least one of those keywords is represented in the link text. That means don't just point things internally to "here" and when getting links from external sources (blogs, press releases, articles, etc) don't just always automatically hyperlink your URL. Throw some good solid keywords into that anchor text that link to various pages throughout your website. Your rankings will thank you.