How Do I Put an RSS Feed on My Website
From LoveToKnow Web-Design
Many webmasters who are interested in presenting the latest news within a particular niche now find themselves asking the question: How do I put an RSS feed on my website?
What is RSS and How Do I Put an RSS Feed on My Website?
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a relatively new Internet technology that collects content from many different Internet publishers, such as blogs and websites, and delivers them to subscribers in one convenient place, an RSS reader. There are two sides to this syndication, and both sides present significant benefits to webmasters.
Keeping Your Website Content Fresh
One of the most important ways you can improve your website ranking is by keeping your content updated often. New content draws more visitors, and it keeps them there longer. Embedding content from RSS feeds into your own website that's focused on the niche or subject area your visitors are interested in will keep your webpage interesting for your readers.
RSS works as follows:
- A webmaster creates a web page or blog, occasionally updates it with content, and adds the new content to an RSS feed by adding it to the website RSS file in XML format.
- Website visitors who subscribe to that web page RSS feed will receive that updated content immediately through their RSS reader.
- Subscribers can click the link in the RSS update to visit the web page and read more.
By embedding an RSS feed content into a web page, webmasters can take advantage of more content updated constantly with little work.
Syndicating Your Own Website Content
RSS feeds also help a webmaster deliver the latest web page updates to the widest audience possible. Visitors who come to your site may not stay for very long, but if they like your content, they may choose to subscribe to your RSS feed. This presents an opportunity, much like a newsletter, to issue "updates" to an audience that has already signaled that they are interested in the type of content you offer on your site. This makes RSS an excellent website marketing vehicle.
How to Put an RSS Feed on Your Website
To take full advantage of RSS, consider both publishing RSS feeds from your website, and displaying RSS feeds from other websites on your own site. While the process is not simple, by following the steps below, even non-programmers can accomplish both of these tasks.
Syndicating Your Own Website or Blog Content
You only need to follow the steps below once in order to install RSS for your site by creating an RSS file. Once this file is created, issuing new content is very easy.
First, create a text file that uses the format below. The purpose of the file is only to define the Title, Description, and Link related to the content on your web page.
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>This is my Web Page</title>
<link>http://www.mywebsite.com</link>
<description>
Read more to learn about my corporation that makes lots of little widgets for your pets!
</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<item>
<title>
This is my First Article
</title>
<link>http://www.mywebsite.com/articles/article1.html</link>
<description>
When you first buy a new puppy, always make sure to buy them a new soft chew toy to ensure that they have healthy teeth.
</description>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
There are a number of other descriptive tags, or specifications that you can use to describe your content, including publication date and copyright, if you wish.
Second, you will save the new file with an "xml" extension, such as "rss-feed.xml" and save the file on your root web directory.
Third, syndicate your RSS feed by providing an RSS image (you can copy/paste the image from any website with RSS) with the following tags:
<a href="http://www.mywebsite.com/rss/rss-feed.xml"> <img
border="0" src="rss/icon_rss.jpg" alt="rss for my website" width="36" height="14"></a>
Additionally, you can submit your RSS feed to the various RSS feed aggregators that distribute your updates to subscribers. The most popular ones include:
The examples above are only a very brief listing, searching for "Submit your Feed" will result in many more.
Displaying Content From an RSS Feed
The other side of RSS is the client side. The most popular method feed subscribers use to view RSS feeds is with an application called an "RSS reader." An RSS reader will collect all of the most recent updates to your subscribed feeds and present them to you in an organized format that's easy to scan. When you see one in particular you'd like to read, you click the link and the website opens up in a web browser, where you can read the content in its entirety.
Another solution is to embed those subscribed feeds into your own website so that your visitors can review the latest articles within those feeds right on your page.
- RSS to Javascript scripts: Conducting a web search for "RSS to Javascript" will result in a multitude of websites that offer a form or application that will convert the URL of any RSS feed into a snippet of Javascript code. When you place this Javascript within your HTML, it will display Feed updates directly on your web page.
- RSS Widgets: An easy solution is to embed an RSS reader widget onto your web page. Widgetbox and YourMinis are two of the most popular sources for widgets. If you prefer non-javascript widgets, search for "flash rss."
Additional Resources
Placing an RSS feed on your web page is an excellent method to keep your content fresh, and to draw in more traffic. For additional help, visit the following resources:
Learn More
This page has been accessed 495 times. This page was last modified 05:45, 26 November 2008.
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