Creating A Basic RSS Feed For Your Site

The future of RSS Feeds and internet marketing is looking bright and promising. It would be a wise decision to get yourself up to speed on this developing content sharing technology by putting together your own news feed for your site.

In the previous article on RSS Feeds you learned some of the basic information on what an RSS feed is and what it can do for your website. Today we're going to learn to create a basic feed that you can put into use within a few minutes.

To see what RSS Feeds will look like on your site you can take a look at mine at:

http://www.cashway.com

Is it difficult to create the feed?

No not really. You do need to know how to set up and edit html code using a few symbols that I'll show you below.

Without getting into all of the technical details of whcih version or RSS specification you should use, let's just get down to the nuts n' bolts of it.

You can build an RSS file from scratch pretty easily, as long as you keep the features aligned with the material you're trying to present. You'll need to start up your favorite html editor to create the one your file (page that will contain the code and content links) for your RSS Feed.

NOTE: Once you have created this file you will need to upload it to your server to allow other web sites to display your feed on their site(s). The best part about this is that once the file is created you can easily update your channel and content by updating your file.

OK let's begin....

You must be in html format to enter the code on the page. At the top you must include the following: This lets RSS readers know that the page is set up for an RSS Feed.

Next you will be adding the code that identifies your channel information. This tells readers about your feed. Add Your sites's feed title here http://www.yoursite.com Describe What Your Feed Offers en-us What's the above mean? Here's the breakdown.

Tag definitions...

The "title" tag tells viewers the name of your channel. The "link" tag provides a link to your web site. The "description" tag describes what your channel offers and the "language" tag indicates that you're writing in English.

Now for those of you who want to provide an image like your logo within your feed you can add the following tags: Title For Your Image http://www.yoursite.com/image.gif Place a link here such as http://www.yoursite.com/ 88 31 Describe What Your Site Offers OK - now that we have all of the business side of the feed out of the way we can get on to the code that will allow you to display your content. For each item you want to allow others to see you need to add the following code. My First Article, etc http://www.yoursite.com/myfirstarticle.htm Provide the headline or short description here For every new item you add you will need to follow this same format. Pretty simple, huh!

Now lets close up your feed. To do this add the following code after the last item you want to display. There, you're done. Now save your page with a .rss extension and upload it to your website. It doesn't matter where you save it to, it can be in your root directory or in a separate folder.

---------------------------------------------------------------

You can get more indepth information and complete step-by-step instructions from the FREE ebook "RSS Publishing Made Easy" that you can download when you subscribe to my Net Review newsletter.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Now that you've created your feed you'll want to share it with others on your website and maybe even syndicate it on other sites.In order to view your new feed on any of your webpages or let others display it on their's you need to do one or two more things.

You can....

1 - Convert your RSS Feed URL to a java script code that you can add to any webpage on your's or others sites. To do that you'll need an RSS to javascript converter. Not to worry because they're Free online services that you can use to do this very quickly.

My favorite one is...

http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/

Here's another...

http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/

You can also look for news aggregators and reader directories that you can submit your feed to for more exposure.

Now, with an RSS feed you have an efficient way of sending your content directly to the viewers who have asked for it. This gives you another avenue to get your message viewed by more and more people across the net.

Ed Duvall is webmaster for http://www.cashway.com and http://www.instantnettraffic.com providing internet marketing tools and resourcesto help you with your online business.

Reprint this article as long as resource box remains intact.

Copyright 2005 cashway.com

---

Brief History of Blogs

So where did all these blogs come from? How did... Read More

Blogging Dollars in 7 Hours or Less

Need to make money fast, but you don't want to... Read More

Content Syndication Through RSS Feeds

Delivering regularly updated content to website visitors is easier through... Read More

Business Blogging - 5 Tips to Help You Smashl Through Writers Block

It's inevitable. Everyone hits the wall. Whether you've been blogging... Read More

What Will Microsofts New RSS Windows Mean To You As A Computer And Internet User?

Nothing and a whole lot!That's if Microsoft gets it right.... Read More

Should You Get A Blog?

A blog is a type of website. It allows the... Read More

How Yahoos Recent Facelift Can Mean More Traffic To Your Site

It even surprised me. Yes, even though I have... Read More

How to Create an RSS Feed

An RSS news feed can be used to communicate with... Read More

What the Heck is a Blog?

Everybody is talking about blogs. They are everywhere: on the... Read More

Update Your Websites Content Automatically 24/7 Using RSS(Real Simple Syndication) and RSS Feeds

RSS(Real Simple Syndication) is the newest form of content syndication... Read More

Displaying RSS Feeds on Websites

Displaying RSS RSS offers webmasters a unique opportunity to display... Read More

RSS is a Life Raft, Saving Us from a Sea of Useless Information

One of the main problems with the Internet these days... Read More

Using QuickSub To Make It Easier For Your Visitors To Subscribe To Your Feed

You can make it easier for your visitors to subscribe... Read More

The Key To Marketing With Blogs

I've spent months answering questions from marketers about blogs and... Read More

Should My Home Business Have a Blog?

It's fair to say that blogging has taken the Internet... Read More

Blogging for Business

Not long ago a blog was simply an online diary.... Read More

Use RSS to Get Your Sites Indexed Overnight

As you may know, Google has it's very own blogging... Read More

#1 Mistake Most Blogs Do

As much as this might surprise most bloggers, the #1... Read More

Five Ways A Blog Helps You To Market Your Business

Want to advertise online without spending a fortune? Get a... Read More

How To Create A Blog

A blog is an online diary or as some people... Read More

How to Cash In on Blogs

Over the past year or so, more and more webmasters... Read More

Blogs: Todays Internet Diary and Marketing Tool

The popular blogger.com owned by Google, Inc. has been around... Read More

Blogging will Soon Take Over the World

In recent years, it's been pretty obvious that "blogging" (Web... Read More

Why You?re Not Blogging - And Why You Should Start Today

Those of you who aren't ready to wade into the... Read More

Marketing With Blogs and RSS - The Hot New Tools of 2005

In case you haven't heard, the net is buzzing with... Read More

What Is RSS?

Recently I did an interview with a well known email... Read More

Blogging Your Way To Success Part 1

It has been said that blogging will be the new... Read More

Feeds For Small Business: Real World Examples

A merchant I was talking to the other day asked... Read More

Top 7 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use RSS

In today's online world of high-speed websites and giant portals,... Read More

Is Your Site Ready For The Coming RSS Revolution?

Recently, there have been many developments in the RSS arena.... Read More

RSS Works: Hard Metrics to Prove It

Marketers are constantly asking if RSS marketing works and if... Read More

Details of Getting a Blog

Blogs, the abbreviation of Web Logs (online journals), are becoming... Read More

Blogs Are About Getting to Know Yourself Better

I still consider myself to be a blog writing novice... Read More