RSS the new email – He might be right

RSS the new email – He might be right!

Through my email inbox came an article entitled “RSS – The New Email” and the author raised some very interesting points that I thought were worth highlighting.

For instance, you can embed audio and video in an RSS Feed. Might not sound that fantastic but as more and more companies explore RSS, they've come to realise that trying to embed video into a normal email is a no-starter.

100% Spam free – yes you heard me right. Because RSS is content is subscribed to anonymously, there's no address to send the spam too!

100% deliver-ability – Gotcha! Any email marketer will tell you their biggest problem is delivery. Its estimated that for any email campaign, expect anywhere between 10% and 40% to be undelivered.

The same goes for smaller emails you send on a regular basis as more and more carriers look at ways of fighting spam emails, with higher levels of 'legitimate' emails going into peoples junk folders.

So what's holding this mass exodus to RSS up? Well, at present, according to sources, less than 20% of Internet users read content with the aid of an RSS reader.

And the problem gets worse. Even amongst frequent web browsers, when asked, many did not know the meaning of the little orange symbol.

When you put these two figures together, you end up with a very slow sea of change, but I reckon that's only a matter of time as more and more of us catch onto the benefits of using RSS. If ever proof were needed, you only need look at the recent upgrade of Explorer to version 7, which now comes with a built in RSS reader/subscriber in the 'favourites' menu.

The stage is set and the time has come for RSS Feeds to enter center right. The death of email – debatable but certainly now is the time to start exploring making RSS work for you personally and your business.

Have you subscribed to our RSS Feed? No? Don't worry, just click here and add our feed URL to your reader or Explorer Version 7 Feed Favourites.

Like to know more about RSS Feeds? Click here to find out more and the answers to some common RSS questions from beginners.

Part 2 - Improve your RSS Feeds syntax - SEO Tip

After yesterdays thrilling visual guide installment of how to correctly script your RSS Feed so that it validates across as many readers as possible, here's part 2 as promised.

Yesterday, we looked at the correct syntax for each individual item. Today we look at the 'header' and 'footer' script to complete your RSS .xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<channel>


<title>Fabulous Photo Gifts - News and Information service including Purple 13 artwork news</title>
<link>http://www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk</link>
<description>Fabulous Photo Gifts - latest news, features and gossip from the gift giving world includes Purple 13 international art sales and SEO articles</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<pubDate>Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
<copyright>Copyright: (C) Fabulous Photo Gifts - Please contact Fabulous Photo Gifts for further information and use</copyright>
<managingEditor>jonathan@purple13.co.uk (Jonathan Crouch)</managingEditor>
<webMaster>jonathan@purple13.co.uk (Jonathan Crouch)</webMaster>
<atom:link href="http://www.purple13.co.uk/rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />

<item>
item here – see previous post (click here)
</item>

and at the bottom after the last 'item'
</channel>
</rss>

Remember to watch out for those pesky dates – they must follow the correct syntax e.g. Jan rather than January which is not correct. If you follow the script example above, you won't go far wrong.

You can always validate your feed after you've uploaded it to check you've done everything correctly.

Click here to validate your feed. validator.w3.org/feed/ W3C Validation service is free and offers useful correction tips rather than just telling you where you've gone wrong. Once your feed is validated, remember to keep it so.

Finally, don't forget to change the urls and text to reflect your own feed or site.

To subscribe to our own RSS Feed which often carries useful SEO tips (nothing we haven't tried ourselves!) and not miss a single tip, click here and our RSS Feed URL to your reader.

New to RSS? Click here to find out more about how to use RSS Feeds to promote your website or Blog.

Why Social Bookmarking is so important - part 2

Seo article

Why Social book marking is so important

Watch out, watch out! No there’s not a Humphrey about (a Humphrey was a red and white striped straw that used to roam in gangs looking to pinch kids milk in the popular ‘70’s milk TV adverts – gave kids nightmares for years), but rather a much larger straw intent on drinking up as much online content as it can and blowing it back at you ‘in your face’.

The ‘straw’ of course is Google.

With the not so recent acquisition of Utube and the more recent acquisition of Feedburner, there’s no doubt in my mind anymore that Google is building towards a global domination of serving information the likes of which have never been seen (if you don’t count the World Service broadcasts) only it’s not London calling. This time it’s a different tune altogether.

At present, you can perform searches on Google, Google Blog search and Google image search. There are other bits waiting in the labs you can play with but these are the main three.

With the more recent purchases, I reckon Google is hurrying along plans to present a new kind of search engine where when you type in a search query, the results presented will be a mix of listing, blog and images all rolled into one.

Personally I think this would be a mistake.

It’s OK if you’re searching for something really off-beat but for every day search’s, what it will do is mean you’ll have to use longer search queries to get to the meat of what you’re looking for. Searchers are going to have to be a lot more specific in future.

I’d prefer it if Google developed a new interface whereby a search result is broken into 3 vertical frames – general, blog and image all within the same page. From that you could then click on which ‘field’ you want to explore further but perhaps the other ‘fields’ could minimalise rather than disappear altogether.

This will have huge implications for PPC campaigns as I suspect you’ll have a choice of which ‘frame’ you want your campaign to appear in and depending on the field, I suspect you may pay a premium.

Of course the scenario I’ve painted above will have huge implications for SEO to. It’s not hard to imagine that multiple frame ideas will result in less results per page and those early page positions will be keenly contested.

Which brings me back to my original question - why social book marking is so important.

If Google does adopt a model like the one above, then a ‘web presence’ simply won’t do anymore. Webmasters and SEO’s will have to adopt social book marking techniques like Blogs and RSS feeds, building up networks of followers on the likes of Digg and Del.ici.ous to get their content syndicated as much as possible.

Because Google will roll out search results based on social recommendation and relevancy, and content alone (whilst good content will always have a place) will become less important than the number of people regarding it as important.

If you haven’t already started then now is a perfect time to start socialising.

Get a Blog, get an RSS Feed on your website and start publishing to the masses. One comment I hear and read time and again is ‘what would I write about?’ I won’t bore you with the answers here – many people, better qualified than I have already answered that one. In a nutshell, anything that you think someone out there might like to read and share with others. New products, Q & A on your particular field, the office cat even. And if you still can’t think of anything, then turn your staff loose – they’re a creative bunch – you’ll soon find you have everything from pot roast recipes to how to deal with a scraped knee at the park attracting an audience.

Google have their own Blog creator – Blogger.com. Its easy to use and moderate comments. Once you get into it, you’ll find there’s loads of help on the net for customising and adding functionality as well as making book marking easier for readers. Little things like adding a Digg this to the bottom of each post puts you one step (or should that be click) nearer to getting your content syndicated (linked to). You might want to check out this excellent ‘how to’ from a fellow blogger as well as an earlier ‘how to’ post I wrote about adding Socializer and Digg It to your Blog

I know there are other Blog building programs and sites out there – I mention Blogger because with it already being by Google, it already fits into the way they do things so would be that much easier to integrate results from etc. A bit too grassy knowl conspiracy for you? Ask Mulder and Scully. The truth is out there.

Also, try adding other blogs and feeds to your own group of interest. You’ll find that eventually, you’ll get a link back. Leave thoughtful comments on other pieces you come across and before you know it, you’ll receive a comment back.

Try to be transparent – it’s all to easy to only allow ‘good comments’, however, done right, a negative can still be turned into a positive – always try to respond to a negative comment so that other readers can see you’re sincere and not afraid to be taken to task. It will create a stronger positive reaction to your company and Google will love it because people are obviously reading your copy.

One example of this is a recent piece I discovered on a car retail dealership training website which stated customer complaints solved on the spot created more brand loyalty than a satisfied customer. Check out the full piece here: www.edt.uk.com/index.php?ref=news#customer

Finally, remember that not every piece you write has to be shoving a selling message down the reader’s throat for your product or service. I have read that SEO articles are particularly bad when it comes to attracting visitors – there’s so many of us out there you see, but I don’t declare myself a SEO expert. Rather, I’d wish to offer my take on things and offer practical advice and I won’t recommend anything I haven’t done myself.

Apart from all the rumours circulating on forums etc, one small clue as to this possible socialising outcome is a small application in Google Labs called Google Sets (http://labs.google.com/sets).

You’re invited to enter 5 keywords and then Google will go off and predict other ‘keywords’ for that set. Clicking on them then brings up a list of search results.

Perhaps in the final version, this will pick up on blog labels???? An interesting thought.

And here’s another, With Google getting even larger, how much longer can it claim its impartiality? With products like Google checkout, any other business would obviously push it’s own customers above others – that’s good financial sense and although Google wouldn’t seem to be short of a penny or two, executive toys and new acquisitions don’t come cheap.

Jonathan C Crouch

About the author – Jonathan is an I.T professional, living and working in Derby. He is also the web developer and technical ‘guru’ for Fabulous Photo Gifts – an online personalised photo gift company run by his partner Mandy Collins. His most recent project was a web design for a family whose twins were diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Check out there helpful website at www.twinswithsma.co.uk or subscribe to their new blog – http://twinswithsma.blogspot.com

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