RSS GUIDE AND TUTORIAL

Developing Content Sites as Marketing Tools

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:28:00 +0000

Developing Content Sites as Marketing Tools
by: Sharon Housley
Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyTargeted Content SitesHighly targeted, focused sites that are related to specific market segments are highly advantageous and can often be created using existing web content. The key is to provide value. Think of the time spent surfing the web gathering resources and information. By creating a topic-centric resource compiling information, webmasters are providing a service or value. In many cases that value is simply the compilation of topic-specific information in a single resource. The compilation of this information in itself is the value. These highly focused content sites can be great supplemental portals that are invaluable as a marketing tool for niche products. Niche portals help define expertise in a specific market segment, not to mention the added benefit of providing valuable topic-specific links. The topic-centric portals also tend to achieve high search placement and will often provide advertisers high quality exposure, allowing webmasters the opportunity to capitalize on their efforts. What to put in topical portal? ARTICLESMany article writers allow webmasters to republish their articles. Search the large article directories for quality topic-specific articles using keyword searches. The articles contained in these directories often allow publishers to freely reproduce the article's contents as long as the hyperlinks in the article and article resource box remain intact. Resource for finding articles for publication:GoArticles - http://www.goarticles.comRSS FEEDSBy nature, RSS feeds are designed for syndication. Most RSS feeds can be freely reproduced. Locate topic-specific feeds using keyword or category searches. The contents of the feeds can be used to populate web pages. There are a number of free scripts available that allow webmasters to display the contents of an RSS feed (see http://www.rss-specifications.com/displaying-rss-feeds.htm for instructions on displaying feeds). Resources for finding RSS feeds for syndication:RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com RSS Locator - http://www.rss-locator.comLINK DIRECTORYWhile this takes a little more time, compiling a collection of niche websites on related topics can significantly enhance the value of a portal. Topic-specific directories and search engines can achieve high search engine rankings with the larger engines like Google and MSN, and can easily be optimized for a collection of search terms. The process can even be automated if you have programming experience.Sample Link Directory - http://www.investing-partners.com TOPIC SPECIFIFC FORUMThe most successful forums are those that are highly focused and niche-oriented. Establishing a community of individuals with common interests will result in return visitors. Managing a forum is not overly complex and there are free forum scripts available that will provide the forum structure. Many of the forums have scripts available that will allow for search engines to spider the contents and forum posts. As the content flourishes, the site will increase in value. Free Forum Scripts: http://www.phpbb.comMore on topic-specific portals or information radars can be found in Robin Good's book 'Newsmastering'. http://www.masternewmedia.org/reports/newsmasterstoolkit/ A site that is focused on a relatively narrow range of goods and services will find that there is less competition. Topic-centric websites that provide a gateway to niche information related to a particular industry, sector, topic or market segment are becoming increasingly valuable and popular. Compiling the resource using free resources will minimize the capital investment. Regardless of whether you are marketing a product, service or advertising, narrowing the topic focus will attract a targeted audience who genuinely are interested in the website topic, allowing you to monetize the portal, and minimize the expense.

10 RSS Benefits

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:08:00 +0000

10 RSS Benefits
by John Teh

A revolutionary way of distributing your content in a systematic way and the same time providing a channel where subscribers can get new updates of your new content real time. Notifications are no longer necessary on the arrival of new content. All subscribers will get the info when the info is updated. In other words, RSS streamlines channels of communication between publishers and readers.
RSS consists of custom made content, hence providing numerous topics of interest to subscribers. Specifics can be narrowed down to your point of interests so that you can obtain only information that you really need. In other words, you have total control on what you want.
RSS is an advertising tool. It is a highly used term among internet marketers today in getting more traffic to your website, increasing link popularity, increasing search engine rankings, etc. With the ever increasing number of RSS directories out there, the level of exposure one can get by having their own RSS Feed is tremendous. By having greater exposure, companies can use this to their advantage over their competitors by having their latest new product known first through their RSS feeds.
The structure of RSS allows numerous set of information to be summarized into short title and descriptions, which allow readers to have a quick scan of useful information they want, instead of going through pages of data.
RSS feeds allow users / subscribers to self-subscribe, allowing total control of what they're subscribed to. If one feels that a feed is no longer useful, he or she can simply delete the feed from the aggregator. Publishers no longer need to be concerned with spam, privacy policies, and age guidelines. In other words, readers have complete control over their content consumption, including a quick, easy and reliable mechanism to unsubscribe from content they do not wish to receive.
The versatility and flexibility of RSS allow it to accommodate all kinds of information, including blog posts, forum postings, articles, schedules, discounts, products, latest news, and any other form of information which updates regularly. Instead of opening up each individual site to check on updates, the RSS feeds allow readers to get a group of latest updates from multiple sources instantly. Think RSS feeds as a one-click-get-all kind of tool.
Rumours and latest trends indicate that RSS feeds are indeed taking over some, if not all of the traditional email functions such as notifications and providing latest updated information. This directly supplements the main need of constant communication in many of sectors today. Not to mention the ever increasing number of SPAMS today, certain emails might be "filtered" out by accident, preventing a smooth line of communication. This "filtering" problem does not occur in RSS Feeds. You have total control on what you want to read.
RSS is easy to learn and implement. Even if you're too lazy to get the hold of it, most applications today, both web and desktop, usually have an automated RSS feed creation feature to complement your content. You can use this feature to your advantage to achieve all the points mentioned above.
With the increasing popularity of podcasting, not only RSS will provide you with constantly updating textual and graphical based information, but also audios and videos to boot. Imagine your feed aggregator as a cyber library filled with audio and video based information. Say goodbye to old boring text.
Lastly but not least, RSS feed is here to revolutionize the Internet to greater heights, simplifying and providing important advancements that can fundamentally change how internet content is consumed.
About the Author
John Eye is a blogger and a net enthusiast who hunts for any new information on the aspects of blogging and RSS and their role in today's development, helping to enhance the simplicity of delivering fast and updated content to every Internet users.

Understanding and Using RSS Feeds for your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:21:00 +0000

Understanding and Using RSS Feeds for your Blog
by Bill Healey

You love reading blogs but you don't have the time to search from blog to blog finding a story that interests you. Try setting up an RSS feed to that blog instead. It'll save you boatloads of time by making all the latest blog updates and news stories available for you right on one screen.
An RSS is basically is a set of web feed used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. It actually stands for really simple syndication and usually contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. An RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with your favorite websites in an automated manner that's much easier than checking each website or blog manually.
One of the many positives about subscribing to RSS headlines and stories is they are immediate, and in real time. The moment a blog or news site publishes or updates their site with a feed at the source server, the next thing you know is it is on your screen. That is just one of the reasons why you need to start using RSS feeds. Here are some others:
News - Get the latest news on your favorite sports team, upcoming election news made by a political candidate or a feed from the local newspaper in your town.
Hobbies and interests - If you are interested in cooking, web design, painting, or perhaps cats, there are virtually hundreds if not thousands of conversations and bits of advice available to be fed directly to your computer screen.
Photos - If you're one of those people who like to change your wallpaper daily or maybe update different pictures on your personal website, RSS feeds provide an excellent way to get the latest from photographers across the internet.
Catching up with friends - Maybe you have an old college roommate or a friend from high school that moved to the other side of the country and started up a blog. Now you can keep up with everything going on in their life by having all their latest entries fed directly to your screen. Ok now that you know what makes these RSS so great and useful, here is how you can get yourself one and how they can work for you:
First, you choose an easy to use RSS reader. Most RSS readers are available all over the internet, free to use, and extremely easy to get the hang of.
Then, load up the RSS feeds into the reader you selected. You can do this any number of different ways. Depending on the blog or your own personal preference, you choices are through visiting the website feed directly, copy-pasting the special code from an email, or uploading copies from someone else's RSS reader screen.
You're all set and ready to start reading your web feed news. You only need to simply log in to your RSS reader page, or start your RSS software, and you can instantly scan all your web feeds. You can arrange and store the RSS feeds into folders, much in the same way you can with email, or you can set alerts and sounds for when a particular web feed is updated.

About the Author
ComCastInfo is the premier one stop shop for all of your broadband and cable shopping needs. Be sure to visit www.comcastinfo.com for the best in broadband internet and highspeed internet service packages and cable such as Comcast cable plans.

4 Ways to Make Money with RSS

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:57:00 +0000

4 Ways to Make Money with RSS
by Ray Seanrite

RSS (short for Really Simple Syndication) is the technology used to publish online content in web feed formats on web sites. Links to podcasts, blog entries or news headlines can be disseminated by RSS.
An RSS document is also referred to as a "feed" or a "web feed". RSS feeds are now beginning to be used in a big way in online marketing. Here are some measures you can take to benefit from the new RSS technology.

1. Create interesting content and frequently update it. To attract users from subscribing to your feeds that they may find useful to them, think of ways to keep their interest up. More subscribers means more money since you can ask them to pay for their RSS subscription - or promote affiliate products in the feeds. Unique content that can't be found elsewhere is also one of the things that other users consider when subscribing to RSS feeds.
2. Promote your RSS feeds. You can send feeds by email which you may find easier than other mediums. By doing so, you can reach your target market or potential customers in just a few clicks.
3. Make use of RSS advertising. You can advertise through RSS feeds in the form of banner ads for example. You can also put paid links in the feed.
4. You can also incorporate RSS feeds in your own web or blog site. If online users like the way you present the feeds on your website, they may revisit often. In addition, if your web site is frequently typed into search engines, it will help in increasing your search engine ranking.
Using RSS feeds like this will increase the traffic to your web site.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Beginners Guide To Using RSSFeeds at Squidoo http://www.homebusinesswinners.com/Squidoo-success/squidoo-rss.html
Unique-ify Your Home Business http://HomeBusinessWinners.com/articles/unique-ify.html
Get To The Money Faster - FREE http://eProfitNews.org
About the Author
Author: Ray Seanrite.

Tips to Maintaining RSS Feed Subscribers

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:36:00 +0000

Tips to Maintaining RSS Feed Subscribers
by Sharon Housley

You have an RSS feed and you have worked hard to get the word out. According to your logs you have subscribers! Now the hard part: how to retain the subscribers to your RSS feed. Follow these simple steps to insure that your subscriber base will grow.
1. Original Content
A consistent stream of original content will do well to earn subscribers loyalty. The best RSS feeds provide content that is compelling and unique. Do not rehash existing content, look for a unique angle or spin if you wish to cover something that is hot in the blogosphere.
2. Quality Over Frequency
A posts quality is far more important than a post's frequency. Readers will tire of rambling or nonsensical posts that contain no real value. Time is precious and there are plenty of feeds and blogs, in order to retain readers provide quality not quantity.
3. Get it Right
Syndication has the power to do damage; misquoting or just plain getting it wrong can affect your reputation and perpetuate incorrect information. Be sure to verify all your RSS feed and blogs information prior to posting.
4. Literate
Blog posts are not instant messages: you should always use proper grammar, correct spelling and punctuation. Your posts are a reflection of your knowledge; content presentation matters and will affect how you are viewed.
5. Griping
Do not constantly gripe, no one likes a whiner. If you are going to complain it is not enough to point out problems, you should offer a suggestion for improvement or specifics on how to solve a problem.
6. Balance
Titles of RSS Feed Items and Headlines of blog posts should relate to the contents of the actual post. There is nothing worse than just tempting readers with information and not following through. Use catchy titles but be sure to follow it with related content. In your actual posts, strike a balance be sure to provide enough information without overwhelming readers.
7. Focus
Regardless of your RSS feeds focus' stay on topic! Your feed or blog posts will generally revolve around a specific theme, don't stray too far or you might lose readers. If your RSS feed has a specific theme, stay true to that theme.
8. Length Matters
Not too long, not too short it is a difficult balance, but your post length does matter! If a post is excessively long consider breaking it up or partitioning it into easy to digest paragraphs or break it up into multiple posts. Post length should be consistent throughout your blog and feed. Try not to vary it too much.
9. Credibility
As a publisher, you want to be viewed as a credible source. Posting or reposting inaccurate information will reduce if not nullify any credibility that you have. Provide credentials when offering an opinion and be sure any factual information is accurate before posting.
10. Link
Include links to any related information in the description field of your RSS feed, this is a great way to supplement content. Outgoing links will also often result in links back to your blog or website.
11. Consistency
It is important to remain consistent, try not to vary too much in your daily posts. Stay true to your formula for content if it is working .
12. Listen to Your Audience
Readers will often communicate what they like and what they dislike about your content. It is important that you stay in tune with what your subscribers like and don't like and make the appropriate accommodations.
13. Advertisements
Do not clutter your RSS feed with advertisements. If you choose to include advertisements in your RSS feed be sure to strike a balance between advertisements and quality content.
Starting an RSS feed or is not difficult to attract readers, it is however difficult to retain readers. By following a few simple unwritten rules you will find your subscriber base swell.

About the Author
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

5 Ways to Use RSS to Boost Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:48:00 +0000

5 Ways to Use RSS to Boost Your Business
by bbcrew

RSS feed (or RSS) is a relatively new technology that allows anyone who creates or changing content of website (news, blogs, current events, etc.) to deliver their messages to interested readers with no fuss, no muss and best of all, and no spam important!
Currently, rss is being used by content-rich sites which is mainly blogs and news centers to keep readers up-to-date on newly published posts or breaking stories. But rss can do so much more. Many businesses and organizations are failing to truly exploit the amazing properties of this technology, and in doing so are leaving on the table innumerable opportunities to create even greater value, sales and traffic for their company, product or service and the market share it represents. Below are just a few of the creative ways that businesses and other groups can tap into the power of rss and create new streams of revenue and interest for their organizations.
1. Create An "Announcements and Special Offers" Feed
If your business offers classes, seminars, products, services, specials, sales - essentially anything that changes, updates or rotates throughout a cycle - then creating a dedicated RSS feed could save you, your clients time, and money. By creating an "Announcements and Special Offers" feed and offering access to your clients as an alternative to emails and print mailers, you can keep your client base up to speed, plus send out limited-time and exclusive "feed only" special offers and discounts, thereby offering an incentive to "get on board." This not only saves you time by reducing the advertising cycle to the time it takes to update your web page/feed, it saves your clients money by enabling them to quickly scan through the offering headings and pick out just the one's they're interested in - while your savings on the cost and time of paper and digital mailings (with their appallingly low conversion rates and sporadic delivery) progressively increase as the feed readership segment of your client base grows.
2. Create A "Client of the Week" Feed
If you're in a business where this sort of recognition is appropriate, then this could be a big hit! Creating a feed that regularly highlights a different client, their business and any special offers that they might like to make available - exclusively to other feed members, of course - can be a great value-add for your clients, one that costs you little more than the few minutes it takes to create the "spot" and publish it on your site/feed. Include a photo and a business link and your clients will be singing your praises far and wide!
3. Create A Training Or Team Feed
If you are part of a network marketing venture or are in charge of a large sales force or other team and need a way to consistently and continually get training aids, updates, incentives, sales copy, goals, meeting agendas and other items to your downline or members, consider setting up a feed just to serve this function. Since the actual content is hosted at one central website (subscribers only), you can upload any digital file of any size that you need at the site itself and be assured that everyone who gets the message will be able to retrieve the files - not always a sure thing when dealing with email attachments and text messaging.
4. Create an inter-office feed
Memos, presentation materials, files, announcements, new policies, schedules - all this can be gathered up in one central feed (or broken down into departmental feeds) that are then easily maintained in one central archive and easily accessible by anyone who needs them. Nobody is left behind or out of the loop because they didn't check their email (or because the message got filtered or bounced) and everyone gets just the information they need without dealing with a lot of cross-over communication from people replying and clarifying.
5. Schools, non-profits and other organizations
Schools - Consider the possibilities of a student feed, updated with activities, exam dates, school closings, special "student only" offers from local businesses and so on. Or how about a special assignment feed in which class materials are uploaded by each instructor for students who are ill, away from home or otherwise unable to be in class?
Non-profits - Volunteer feeds could provide a running update of available positions and work needed, as well as featuring profiles of special volunteers and organizational wish lists; fundraising feeds might keep donors abreast of giving events and how their donations are being used; and inter-organizational feeds can keep board members and other involved parties up to date on meeting times, agendas and projects. All great ways of utilizing the powers of RSS for the common good!
Consider these options the next time you need to get information out to a scattered and diverse readership, or need to publish material that never seems to come in when you need it to. RSS is a new technology, surely. But that just means that it's true power to serve your needs is only now being discovered. One of the best ways to keep ahead of the crowd is to forge a path through new territories. Where will RSS lead you?

About the Author
You can visit my blog at: http://blogranks.blogspot.com/

How to Profit from your Home Business Blog

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:25:00 +0000

How to Profit from your Home Business Blog
by Ian Canaway February

A blog is a simple tool which all affiliate marketers should be utilising to explode their affiliate sales.I set up my blog in about 15 minutes at http://www.blogger.com/ it’s a completely free service, and it’s really easy to set-up. I followed directions on an excellent article on getting a new website listed in Google in 48hrs check it out here, http://www.scamfreezone.com/gg/ . I just followed the advice in the article and got started with no problems in no time.I've been doing a lot of research with regards to blogging and came across a case of a 19 year old kid who was making something ridiculous like $50,000 a year with a blog on mobile phones, from his bedroom! So clearly there is a good earning potential through blogs, but they do take time to grow and build up a readership. Treat your blog as a marathon not a sprint, because it will take time.Blogs provide a very simple, quick and easy means to add fresh content to your website. As I’m sure you’ve heard many times over ‘content is king’ in the search engines eyes and if you can provide high quality, regularly updated content your website should benefit with regards to your search engine ranking.By providing fresh, high quality relevant content you will gain an increase of both first time visitors and repeat visitors, they will come back to check out your new content. Providing it’s interesting, relevant and useful to them. You will begin to build relationships with your readers, increasing your credibility and building their trust in you.These repeat visitors will be exposed to your messages more and begin to trust you and your recommendations. This in turn will fuel sales and referrals. Just make sure you don’t recommend a product you haven’t tried because if it is bad you will lose all credibility!
Never recommend something you haven’t tried and tested your self.You want to send traffic directly to your blog, do it through multi-dimensional strategies. Have a subscriber box for your newsletter to build your list from your blog. Use it as an exit pop-up from your main site or thank you page for new subscribers, directing them to relevant content immediately. As once your prospects have got to know you through the blog they are much more likely to explore your website and check out whatever you are offering.Whenever you sign-up for an affiliate program or buy a product, review it in your blog and be brutally honest, your readers will love you for it. Take a completely unbiased view point and talk about both the positives and negatives of each product. In essence you are providing more of an insight into the product than the sales page itself, almost a sample, this will help convert those prospects that are ‘sitting on the fence’ so to speak. Obviously when you review your affiliate products, make sure that you use your affiliate links.It has been shown that prospects are 7-10 times more likely to buy from a blog recommendation than from other sources!Other ways that you can generate extra income through your blog are through the Google ad sense program, selling banner/link space as your traffic increases or as I mentioned earlier by adding you own opt-in sign up form to which you send your newsletter or other targeted offers.Your blog can be syndicated using RSS, which I won’t go into here, that’s another article. But savvy webmasters can use your blog content on their web pages. This benefits them as they have regularly updated fresh content for their website and benefits you through increased exposure and free targeted traffic.Be passionate about your blog, love your blog. If you do not then it will become obvious through your posts and you are unlikely to be anywhere near as successful as you could be.Add to your blog regularly provide good quality content and reviews and you will be on your way to blogging success.
“A man would do nothing, if he waited until he could do it so well that no one at all would find fault with what he has done”. -- Cardinal Newman
Get that blog started today!

Blogging will take over the world!

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:30:00 +0000

Blogging will take over the world!
by: Chris Everson

In recent years, it's been pretty obvious that "blogging" (Web + Log = Blog)has simply taken over the internet.Early blogs were first used by creative (bored?) indivuals, and larger news companies. http://info.cern.ch/ was one of the earliest blogs, followed by NCSA's "Whats New" and also NetScapes "Whats New" blog. After this point the blogging scene exploded.What exactly is blogging? Many consider blogging in it's truest form a type of internet diary. In it's most pure and basic form its simply a single, scrolling webpages with a few links on the side, and an archive table, and larger, prominent updates in the center of the pages. Users usually post small excerpts about daily life, recent events, or news.Creative writers often attract groups of people, who will pursue and follow that blog, often posting comments on updates. Some writers write outrageous, offensive things that also attract readers. Some people write about personal experiences, and some just flat out write whatever they want!RSS, (really simple syndication) also started directly because of blogs. Rather than visit an indivual site over and over again to read the updates and posts, coders started using xml to enable these updates to be available anywhere in the world. In response, RSS has created a whole new chapter in the SEO world, all because of blogging.Many people have begun to weave affiliate links and even sell there own products through their blogs, relying on their dedicated readerbase to generate huge conversion rates. Programs like WordPress can generate ENTIRE web sites simply by advanced forms of blogging. One of my own sites, www.emoneyreport.com utilizes this program. Instead of bloggin real life experiences, we blog our article updates and program reviews. Very nifty!Even major search engines are taking part in the blog scene. Most noticably, Google, purchased the site www.blogger.com. Now google controls the largest, most successful blogging site to date! Google indexes and spiders every post created on this site, EVERY day. It's common practice to create a blog, write small posts and link to your own site through the blog, and doing this you can get spidered and indexed within a day!We have to ask ourselves, whats next for blogging? Will blogging become the next form of linking? Who knows? All I know for sure is that I like what blogging has become, and that it allows my site to generate income for hundreds of people all over the internet.http://www.emoneyreport.com NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money.About the author:NO BS reviews of programs that we have used to make money. We have partnered with several internet gurus to release this book, containing the secrets that most internet gurus DON'T want you to know.

The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:33:00 +0000

The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog
by: Linda Bruton

If there is a downside to blogging, I have yet to find it. The more you learn about blogging, the more there is to like.In fact, here are 6 mouth-watering reasons why every marketer should be blogging:1- Fast Search Engine Spidering and Indexing of Your Site:Did you know that Google owns the most popular blogging platform on the planet? Blogger at http://www.blogger.com is used to produce thousands of blogs. Even a complete internet newbie can set up a blog in about 5 minutes at Blogger. And guess who can be counted on to come by and quickly spider all those new blog posts as they are written?Yahoo is also embracing blogs and feeds in a big way. Savvy marketers know that adding their blogs and feeds to their MyYahoo page can bring the Yahoo spider to their site almost immediately.One of the reasons that blogs get spidered so quickly is that most of them produce a feed. Many blogs automatically "ping" (or notify) some of the large sites that carry these feeds and make them available for syndication. Search engines spider these sites many times a day. Blogger, for instance, pings Weblogs every time you make a post. You can also "ping" a free site called Pingomatic (http://www.pingomatic.com) every time you add a new blog post. Your ping will notify Yahoo and 11 other large feed sites that you've added a post. If it only were so easy to get Google to notice new pages on regular sites!If you have a new site that you are having trouble getting indexed, adding a blog or RSS feed is one of the quickest ways to get the spiders to come calling. 2-Blogs can Build Your Backlinks Quickly:If you've spent time trying to get reciprocal links to your site, you know how frustrating, boring, and time-consuming it can be. I've long considered reciprocal link building to be one of the worst ways to develop link popularity. Many SEO experts consider one-way links to be far more effective. A blog can build one-way links to your site fast. If you've just started a blog, you should submit it to the large blog and feed directories. Here is a list of the Top 55:http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/Once you've submitted your blog to these directories, you'll find your backlinks growing quickly. This past year, more webmasters are using RSS feeds on their sites to keep their sites fresh and spidered frequently. Software applications such as RSS Equalizer, Express RSS, and CARP make this easy.After starting my first blog, I was amazed at how many different sites carried my feed with a link back to my site! These links can multiply exponentially over time. Now tell me something. Wouldn't you rather be spending your time adding content to your site than trying to get questionable reciprocal links? Especially when it doesn't take any extra time?3-A Frequently Updated Blog will Keep the Spiders Visiting Your Site Often:Most of us are aware that the search engines like sites that are updated frequently. If you have your blog set up correctly, every post will update several pages of your site. Then pinging Yahoo and the blog and feed directories at Pingomatic can bring out the spiders in just a few hours. This is a great way to get new pages of your site indexed quickly and frequently.4-Your Site is Stickier and More Appealing to Visitors:A blog on your site is an easy way to keep your site updated on a regular basis. The upside is that visitors will come by more often. If they find your blog interesting and informative, they may bookmark your site. That means you have a much greater chance of making sales. And you have a ready-made audience for any new products you launch.A blog can also add a human face to your website that potential customers will trust and respond to. Most marketers know that people buy from people they like and respect. A well-written blog is a great way to build a relationship with your visitors.5-A Blog Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Build A Brand-New Website Without Training:Even a 10 year old could set up a blog at Blogger.com and be blogging almost immediately. No HTML knowledge is necessary. You don't need to know how to FTP. You don't need to know how to link the pages in your site together. All you have to do is type in your post and click on the "publish" button. And yet you can still set up an attractive, spiderable site in record time.Blogs can be used for any type of site, not just for online ezine delivery or a place to announce new products. Using a blog you could quickly build a niche site. Just research the best keywords for your niche. Then write articles around those keywords and post them to your blog. Include your keywords in your title. You now have an instant niche site that will be spidered quickly and be easy to maintain.6-Keyword competition in RSS feed sites is much less than in the SE's:Google, Yahoo, and MSN each have many millions of webpages in their indexes. It can be almost impossible to get top rankings for competitive keywords if you don't have a high PR site with lots of backlinks.It's a completely different story at the RSS feed sites. The competition for many high-competition keywords is almost nonexistent. Setting up a blog in some of these high-competition niches is a good way to successfully compete.Marketers spend a lot of time and money getting traffic to their sites, creating backlinks, getting good SE rankings, and building relationships with their customers. A blog can improve your results in all those areas. There aren't very many free marketing techniques that can make that claim! About the author:For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else)

7 Reasons to Add Podcasting to Your Business Marketing Mix

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:40:00 +0000

7 Reasons to Add Podcasting to Your Business Marketing Mix
by: Rodney Rumford

Leveraging podcasting technology can give you a marketing edge that will allow you to increase your online visibility, increase your client acquisition rates and improve customer loyalty. The smart businesses and marketing companies will add podcasting to the marketing mix for their business. Adding podcasting to your marketing mix can have tremendous positive impact on your business.Many small and large businesses are still trying to understand the basics of podcasting technology. There are many articles and white papers that can educate people on the basics of podcasting 101. If you are looking to educate yourself more on podcasting for your business you can read the 6 blogs that are available at http://blog.podblaze.comSo exactly how does marketing with podcasts work? Think of podcasting as a communication tool for your business. How do you currently use marketing tools such as: your website, newsletter and email marketing? You probably use these mediums to communicate messaging to your target audience. But there are some problems with trying to market through these communication channels.People don’t always get your email due to overly aggressive Spam filters. They don’t come back and visit your website, or read your newsletter. People actually have to make an effort to read your content. If you have a podcast, they can actually stream the audio and let it play while they are doing other tasks at their computer. People tend to multitask in order to be more efficient with the use of their time. Additionally, most users tend to prefer value added audio content that is specific to their areas of interest. Your quality audio podcast content also tends to have a higher perceived value by your target market. Providing value added content is what your business should be focusing on. Podcasting is only a communication tool, and your podcast is only as good as the content that you provide to your audience. Make sure that you produce relevant content and not just a rambling piece of audio. Follow the best practices that I wrote about in my last article.Most businesses need to be made aware of the increased online visibility that podcasting can provide. Your podcast could be in front of 40 million iTunes listeners if you have made an iTunes compatible RSS podcast feed; multiple Blog directories or specialized podcast ping directories such as http://www.freshpodcasts.com or http://audio.weblogs.com Verify that the major podcast ping directories receive a ping every time you add a new show to your podcast RSS feed. Additionally, the search engines will look at the RSS podcasting feed and spider the show notes that are tied to your podcast as well.Here are 6 of the 7 reasons that your business should be podcasting and some of the business benefits that you could derive from a properly executed podcast...1. Increase your marketing reach and online visibility2. Improve your sales & conversion rates3. Regular line of communication with subscribed listeners4. Value added content increases loyalty5. Industry news and trends sets you apart from the competition6. Interviews with leaders in your particular niche will establish your business as a respected leader in your niche or industry.You can get the 7th reason and learn even more about using podcasting as a business marketing tool by reading these 6 podcasting business blogs at http://blog.podblaze.comSo don't wait any longer; start podcasting today and leverage this audio technology for your businessAbout the author:Rodney Rumford has 18 years of sales, marketing and technology experience and is the founder of

Analyzing the New Yahoo! RSS Report for Marketers

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:14:00 +0000

Analyzing the New Yahoo! RSS Report for Marketers
by: Rok Hrastnik

We were waiting for something like this to happen for a long time. Yahoo!, one of the key providers of mass-market RSS aggregators, finally took a step forward and published their RSS whitepaper, covering their own findings with RSS, based on their usage data.1. YAHOO!'S KEY FINDINGSLet's first take a look at Yahoo! key findings and what they mean for marketers.a] Awareness of RSS is quite low among Internet users. 12% of users are aware of RSS, and 4% have knowingly used RSS.Although RSS awareness is increasing, only few internet users yet understand what RSS is and how to use it.For marketers, this means that simply placing an RSS button on their site it not nearly enough, with the report finally demonstrating that marketers needs to use clear and persuasive copy to get their visitors interested in RSS, explain RSS to them and get them to subscribe to their feeds.In addition it also shows that marketers need to make sure they are using "user-friendly" buttons to generate subscribers, such as "Add to MyYahoo!", which consumers do understand.b] 27% of Internet users consume RSS syndicated content on personalized start pages (e.g., My Yahoo!, My MSN) without knowing that RSS is the enabling technology.This finding only underlines the above suggestions.Stop touting your RSS feeds only using an RSS button, but rather aim for a "subscribe feature" and then explain to the visitor how to use it.Strong copy has never been so important.c] 28% of Internet users are aware of podcasting, but only 2% currently subscribe to podcasts.Goes to show that podcasting still has a long way to go and can right now function only as a supplement to your existing marketing activities.It might also give an indication that audio is not the most appropriate format for much online content.d] Even tech-savvy "Aware RSS Users" prefer to access RSS feeds via user-friendly, browser-based experiences (e.g., My Yahoo!, Firefox, My MSN).e] My Yahoo! has the highest awareness and use of any RSS-enabled product.Both of the findings above, although indicating that these are the results Yahoo! would want to publish, show that having browser-based RSS reader subscribe buttons is a must.It also shows that the market is ready for the soon-coming IE and Outlook integrated RSS features, which should really boost RSS usage among consumers online.Now, let's take a deeper look at the report ...2. "UNAWARE RSS USERS" VS "AWARE RSS USERS"The whitepaper makes a strong distinction between "Unaware RSS Users" and "Aware RSS Users", positioning the "Unaware" batch as the mainstream Internet population.This makes it absolutely clear that B2C marketers, targeting consumers, should take special care to promote their feeds using "friendly" subscribe buttons.On the other hand, if targeting a more tech-savvy audience, going the way of "RSS" and more complex RSS reading tools might be a better choice. This might also prove more effective for targeting executives and other corporate target audiences that might be using an enterprise-wide RSS solution, such as NewsGator.3. CONSUMPTION LEVELSThe whitepaper says that on the average "Aware RSS Users" subscribe to 6.6 feeds.The consequences of this are not as simple as they might seem. Even "RSS Aware" users do not subscribe to "just anything" and seems they only subscribe or keep being subscribed to the content of highest relevance to them.The message for marketers is to become even more relevant and more focused on providing real value for their target audiences.RSS does not mean that end-users will start consuming that much more online content, but simply that their primary consumption channel will change. It's up to you to make place for yourself in this consumption channel, but you can only do so if you become one of the key targeted content providers for your market and can deliver consistently high-quality content.4. TYPES OF RSS CONTENT CONSUMEDEven in the world of RSS, mainstream media rules, with World news and National news both leading the pack at 52% and followed by Entertainment at 34% and Weather ad 31%.If we take a look at what lies beneath this we can see that end-users still see RSS as a news consumption tool and a tool to receive time-sensitive updates, such as weather info.The interesting part is that blogs achieve only 23% and although they are gaining quickly are still not part of the mainstream.Whichever way you look at this, the real long tail is still far from fruition.There are two are interesting categories listed in the report: investment/financial info/banking at 13% and Shopping/online commerce at 10%.The popularity of these two shows that RSS in fact is appropriate for delivering business info and that RSS can be used for e-commerce. A strong case in point urging e-retailers to start providing RSS feeds.5. WHY END-USERS USE RSS"RSS Aware" end-users subscribe to feed because of "ease" or "convenience", followed by being able to choose what they read.To marketers, these three should be the founding stones of how to get their visitors to adopt RSS.6. THE FAMOUS ORANGE BUTTONMarketers, pay attentin to this.Only 4% of total RSS end-users actually use the orange XML button, and only 38% of RSS aware users use it.It seems the orange button isn't dead ... it was never alive.Let's move on and replace it with something more user-friendly.And BTW --- 22% of the people that clicked on the button don't even know what action they took after clicking the button and 26% left the site. Goes to show the RSS button is only losing us subscribers.7. HOW USERS FIND THEIR FEEDS50% use the defaults available in the RSS reader and only 13% use the search engines to find them.Yes, it's cruical to be in the RSS feed search engines, but it would be even better if you could move your way to the default seetings. And by all means, actively promote the feeds on your site as end-users, according to the report, actively tend to subscribe to the feeds on the sites they find interesting.8. CONCLUSIONTo conclude this, here's a direct quote from the report, saying exactly what I've been trying to get through for a couple of months:"To position RSS among mainstream Internet users, it is essential to effectively communicate the benefits of RSS (ease, convenience, access to information of interest). Internet users do not understand how to use the XML button, how to actively seek out RSS feeds, or even what the term RSS means. Instead, they need a simple interface where they can choose the information and content that interests them. This is where personalized start pages and browser-based experiences can help move RSS into the mainstream."About the author:Learn how to take full marketing advantage of RSS and get all the expertise, knowledge and how-to information for implementing RSS in your marketing mix, from direct marketing, PR, e-commerce, internal communications and online publishing to SEO, traffic generation and customer relationship management. Including complete interviews with more than 40 RSS marketing experts. Click here now:

Submit Your Articles: Guidelines for getting the most out of article syndication

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Fri, 25 May 2007 09:46:00 +0000

Submit Your Articles: Guidelines for getting the most out of article syndication
by: Jack Humphrey

The prevailing, generic internet marketing advice in vogue right now is that you need to syndicate your content. In other words, submit your articles to content directories and syndication hubs in order to win new traffic and links to your website.The problem is that most new online business owners looking for solid step-by-step advice on how this is practically accomplished are turning up little more than the advice above.People in the know have been there and done that. In fact, although article syndication is all the rage these days, expert internet marketers have been doing this for years. The system of getting the most out of syndication is a bit more advanced than simply paying someone to syndicate your content for you, to say the least.Something to consider is that article dispersal hubs (article directories) come in all shapes and sizes. And some are far more advanced than most.Consider the fact, which you might not have been aware of until now, that just getting your articles posted on a bunch of directories doesn't necessarily mean you are getting your articles read in great numbers by your target market.Surprised? You shouldn't be. Think about the old link farms. It was awhile before anyone realized that no one in their target market was actually seeing their links! Certainly no one from their target market. Yet it was all the rage in its short-lived days as a top-notch marketing tactic!The same can be said of most of the article directories on the web today. The two main visitors of such directories are website owners looking for content for their sites and authors looking for places to get published.If neither of these groups are your target market, you are in big trouble if your articles only get syndicated to directories and no further.The real point of syndication is consumption of your information by your target audience. Followed by a click on your link in the byline of your articles. A side benefit is any resulting search engine boost you might get for your site, but it is far less than most experts are telling you.You see, when you submit your articles to the average directory they simply sit there and go no further. The average directories get little or no traffic and they do not in turn promote themselves properly through RSS feeds to bring your articles any real exposure.The directories that give you the most bang for your buck are the directories that further syndicate your content through RSS and newsletters for each topic for which they accept articles.What you want to look for are directories that are promoting your content actively and promoting themselves professionally. Look for directories with pagerank and high traffic stats and you can easily forget about any others.In fact, just one submission to one high traffic, RSS feed-enabled directory can net you more traffic and backlinks than most of the rest of the content directories out there, since most of the others are small sites with article scripts put up by amateur marketers.So when choosing places to spend time hand-submitting your content for the widest distribution possible, make sure you check to make sure submission is even worth that valuable effort. Check each directory's pagerank and traffic stats before you waste time submitting your content to a black hole.If you are going to use a service, carefully go through their stated list of submission sites before paying them a dime. Like the useless "search engine submission" companies that say they will submit your site to 7 zillion search engines (when there are really only a handful of real search engines on the web) many syndication companies pad their submission list with sites where no one will ever see your article or click your link.Also, any syndication or PR specialist worth their fee should syndicate your article content through their own RSS feeds and have a popular site themselves. If not, don't think they are going to do any better for you if their own site lacks significant traffic and pagerank.You only have so much time each day to spend getting the most out of your efforts. Simply submitting articles to a huge list of directories expecting large amounts of links and traffic to come your way in the coming weeks is a loser's bet.Most people are doing this now, but you should have enough information here to avoid making that mistake yourself. Hit the big directories and don't waste your time with the small fry. You can save yourself more time to write more content and syndicate it as well by skipping the ineffective article directories that are nothing more than content ghost towns.About the author:Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking (http://www.power-linking-profits.com ) and the managing partner at , a leading content directory and syndication hub.

RSS Ego Searches

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sat, 19 May 2007 19:31:00 +0000

RSS Ego Searches
by: Sharon Housley

Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies. A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy. Dynamically created keyword based RSS feeds, update in your RSS reader or news aggregators, each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources. The dynamic feeds match requests against new information, as it comes online in real time. The following free services allow for RSS feed ego searches.
Google News - Simply conduct a keyword search of Google News and then click the text that says "RSS" then save the url of the RSS feed into your news reader. Every time a new article with that keyword appears in Google News the feed in your RSS reader will automatically update. http://news.google.com/news
BlogPulse - Find out what is being said about your products, company or your industry in the blogosphere. Conduct a keyword or url search on BlogPulse. Click the orange RSS icon above the search results and save the feed in your reader. Each time the keyword appears in a blog indexed by BlogPulse you will receive a new item in your feed reader. Another feature of BlogPulse is it will graph the keyword occurrences, providing a picture representation so that trends can be easily visualized. Hovering over the lines of the graph will provide details of actual blog mentions. http://www.blogpulse.com
PubSub -Search on a keyword, then save and add the feed to your RSS reader using the icons provided. Optionally with PubSub you can direct your search to only alert you of posts in specific areas of interest including Press Releases, SEC/EDGAR Filings, Newsgroup Posts, or Weblog Entries http://www.pubsub.com
Technorati - Create watch lists, by entering the search term add item to the watch list and then scroll to the bottom click the blue RSS icon to obtain the url of the RSS feed that can be added to your reader. Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere. In order to setup a watchlist you will have to create a Technorati account. http://www.technorati.com
Ice Rocket - Simply search Ice Rocket then click the RSS 2.0 button to obtain the url of the RSS feed that contains your search term. Add the url to your RSS reader or newsaggregator. http://www.icerocket.com/
Find Articles - Traditional media channels can even be monitored using RSS. FindArticles routinely scans magazines and publications for keyword mentions. Conduct a search then click "RSS Alert" to obtain the url to the RSS feed. Add the feed to your reader to receive instant notification of new articles. http://www.findarticles.com
NewsTrove - NewsTrove indexes millions of news articles from a myriad of sources. Build an RSS feed on any topic imaginable. Enter your search words in the search box. Click 'Search' click the orange XML icon on the right side of the search results page and save the feed to your news reader. http://www.newstrove.com
BlogDigger - BlogDigger monitors the blogosphere and generally what is said daily in the blogs. Conduct a search on Blogdigger and click the orange XML icon to retrieve the url of the search feed. The feed should then be added to your RSS reader. http://www.blogdigger.com
DayPop - Conduct a search and click the icon on the right that says XML, save the feed to your RSS aggregator. Only the most recent search results will appear. http://www.daypop.com
Yahoo News - Conduct a search then click "view as RSS" in the right column save the feed in your aggregator. The feed will check Yahoo news for mentions. http://news.yahoo.com/
Overall, ego searches are an excellent way to stay informed and maintain a strategic advantage over competitors. Knowing exactly what your online competitors are doing provides a competitive edge that can be used to your advantage. Keyword RSS feeds can be used to monitor key phrases for trademark abuses or monitoring the effectiveness of a specific press promotion. Although they sound daunting ego searches are simply good business sense.
About the author:Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev an RSS component for developers.

Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings?

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Wed, 16 May 2007 20:11:00 +0000

Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings?
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Tinu AbayomiPaulIt’s been all over the SEO-student rumor mill for weeks now, and has finally made it into my Inbox – in droves. The new get-traffic-quick scheme for search engine results has arrived – flooding ping notification sites with update announcements, even though your blog hasn’t been updated.The question is does this- or some variation of it work? If not, where did this idea come from?Okay, bad news first. Pinging sites like Yahoo and Syndic8 every half-hour for several days or weeks, to notify of updates when they haven’t been made, does nothing but clog up the system. It’s called spam-pinging and it has been around since 2002.If you haven’t updated your blog, or you’re pinging updates of a site that isn’t even a blog (or RSS feed, where applicable), in the long run it’s just going to make it harder to get listed at these sites. In the short run, you could get yourself banned from sites like Yahoo, though it isn’t officially their policy to drop sites for spam-pinging.Yet.True, not all sites that have recently updated lists you can ping to be on are set up to block pings of sites that aren’t updated. But they’ve found ways to block certain sites and users before – it’s only a matter of time.So even in the unlikely event that you could find some way to make this work temporarily, you’d just be setting yourself up to be dropped, in as little as a day in some cases.So if this method doesn’t work, why are there tools available to help you flood these directories? Well, let’s look at the situation logically.Until the middle of 2004, certain adult web properties were able to create several bogus blog sites – in particular, blogspot.com. They’d found that the links leading back to them from those sites helped their page rank in Google, as well as their search results placement. Although Google got wise to them and closed this loophole by fall of this past year, several legitimate blog sites have found that they continue to enjoy high rankings for some keywords that are easier to get. Some people erroneously assume that it’s because their updates appear on Weblogs.com and/or in Blogger’s Most Recently Updated pages several times a day.Having noticed that occasionally, they would get spidered around the same time they posted, they realized that there was a correlation between pinging and better search engine listings.And they’re not completely wrong – there is a parallel. But a parallel is not a cause. It’s just one facet of the relationship between blogs and getting better results in Yahoo, Google and MSN.Their frequency of updates had something to do with their rankings, yes. But it is not what guarantees they get spidered – and if the blog isn’t set up to take advantage of the visit from the search engine spiders, they don’t get listed.To begin to have an understanding of how to get similar results for your site, you have to look at the bigger picture. Spam-pinging isn’t going to do it, and as I’ve said in other articles, there are other ethical, faster, simpler ways to do this.So what is this bigger picture?First of all, blogs have a natural tendency to rank higher in search engines because they Have well-structured site architectureMake use of anchor text linkingAre well linked, Are frequently updated, and, Are focused tightly around a narrow theme, among other things.Couple this with the ease of being able to get one-way links from several sites favored by the search engines, and you have two-thirds of the formula for a well-ranked blog.However, just because these sites appear on publicly displayed ping notification lists and other sites that keep abreast of blog updates, this doesn’t mean that you can get away with pinging them without updating your site.It also doesn’t mean that sites that have authentically updated and sent pings will appear in Google, Yahoo or MSN simply from being frequently updated. The good news is, you don’t need to deluge the ping sites to get noticed. Doing so is often a waste of time, and may be a harmful one. Your best bet for now is to continue to achieve your natural search engine position through blogging, basic search engine optimization, and a common sense approach to frequent updates.And yes, by the way, there IS an ethical way to get into search engines and achieve high rankings with a blog, but it’s not a matter of volume. It’s more a matter of timing, supply and demand. But explaining that process takes a level of detail and an amount of space not available here.About the author:Read about real, ethical back doors to higher rankings that the search engines actually encourage you to use, free at .

Blog and Boost Your Search Engine and rss trraffic

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:35:00 +0000

Blog and Boost Your Search Engine and RSS Traffic
by: Kamau Austin

One of the more recent secrets people are using to get their websites in the search engines, the last couple of years, is with Blogs. Blogs are short for web logs and are like daily dairies on the web.Blogs started out as ways for Internet reality types to share their lives with other people on the web, without having to learn very complicated web design applications like Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage.Dreamweaver, the standard professional web design program takes a least 6 months to master. While FrontPage on the other hand looks a lot like Microsoft Word, and therefore can be used a bit more quickly by people just starting out.Blogs are much easier to use than any web design software. They can be used to change web content from a browser, email, and even simple desk top software. Blogs are web pages created with automated software that date stamps all changes to content.One of the secrets the web marketers use to get their new websites into the major search engines like (Google - Yahoo! and MSN) is called blog and ping. So many Internet fortunes are being built on this simple technique.If you want your new website to be indexed (or included in the search engine database) you shouldn't submit it to the search engines -- instead you should blog and ping.There is a new feature with Google and Yahoo! known as sitemaps, which will also get your site indexed, but most of us will do fine with learning first to blog and ping.Blogs index and file your web pages automatically according to the way you specify in advance.Google loves blogs and has its own web based application called Blogger. You can set up a Blogger account for free at Blogger.com.You should use Blogs for your business to give updates to your customers and supporters every few days on your company's news or inside information. You can also reflect on industry trends with your business blog.What's nice about blogs if you want to get your site in the search engines or keep the search engines up to date with your latest optimization or content efforts. You can post your new website or page to your blog page and link to that page.The search engines will visit the blog page more frequently and index your new pages or web sites some times in a day or two. Also make sure when you post a new blog in Blogger.com you set up your account to ping (or notify) the other major blog directories that your blog has been updated.Or if you want to get your new site into Google go to a high ranked blog listed in Google. If the Blog allows comments give a good comment on the blog. Then link back to the page you want indexed in the Blog.Make sure you give a worth while or useful comment or it will be considered blog spam by the website administrators. Sometimes blog publishers disable the comment feature for this reason, therefore it is important to have your own blogs especially if you have more than one site.This will get the Google spider to index your new sites or web pages within a few days and consider your site for its database given the criteria of its algorithm.If you are looking for a fast, inexpensive and efficient way to build a lot of content on your site, which the search engines will pick up, go to Blogger and open up a free blogging account and join the blogosphere.- The Love Affair between the Search Engines, Blogs and RSSI have been extolling the SEO benefits of Blogs since almost two years ago. Although blogs and search engines don't seem to enjoy the free for all love affair they once had, the search engines and blogs seem to still be married "for better or for worst".The romance and infatuation phase between search engines and blogs has waned because of blog spam. However search engines dare not divorce blogs because they tend to cook up regularly updated content.Blogs are also search engine friendly in design. As publishers we love blogs because it is an easy way for us to update our sites with new content.Many top marketers are extolling about the power of blogs and their natural extension RSS feeds. Almost every successful Internet Marketers today is using some variation of blogs and RSS feeds.Everywhere you go the web gurus are talking about the great upside potential of blogs and RSS. RSS for the purpose of discussing this issue stands for Really Simple Syndication.RSS is presently being used by Internet marketers to share their blog headlines with websites and desktops all over the world. Think of RSS as giving you the ability to blog without boundaries.People on other websites and with downloadable RSS newsreader software can read your newest blog posts without visiting your site. Sites that value your expertise will in a viral fashion feature your RSS feeds and help generate traffic to your site.This allows you to leverage traffic from other peoples sites who feature your blog. Moreover, your subscribers who read your RSS headlines on their desktop software will avoid email filters.Before you explore or upgrade to RSS marketing experiment with desktop newsreaders like Tristana or News Gator. If you prefer to read RSS from your browser download and install Mozilla's FireFox Browser.RSS feeds will be the next phase in Internet marketing following the search engines, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and joint ventures.By having people subscribe to your blog's RSS feeds, or having them syndicated on other people's websites you will be getting a running start on the explosion in blog and RSS marketing once Internet Explorer integrates RSS into its browser. About the author:To learn more about Blogs, RSS, and Search Engines visit Kamau Austin's Search Engine Blog at...

New Google Blog Search is Great Marketing News for Business Podcasts, Blogs and RSS Feed Publishers

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:00:00 +0000

New Google Blog Search is Great Marketing News for Business Podcasts, Blogs and RSS Feed Publishers
by: Rodney Rumford

Copyright 2005 Rodney RumfordGoogle just introduced Blog Search in beta yesterday. This new search function allows for you to search the internet for Blogs, Podcasts and RSS feeds. You simply type in your keywords and it will show you results that have come from these sources.The results they display are not showing any preferences to Blogs that are published on Blogger. We are seeing results for all Blogging platforms. Actually Google Blog Search is not just looking at Blogs. They are looking for any RSS feed, which might be from a Blog, Podcast, or any other XML feed. It appears that the search tool is pretty responsive and we are seeing results show up in a matter of hours after a new post is made to the RSS Blog and Podcast Feed. This is another way that you can create online visibility for your business. The organic results are sorted by relevancy, but you have the option to sort them by date as well. This is especially nice if you want to locate the latest post for a fast breaking news topic and want to find it quickly in the blogosphere. The other thing that Google has done is to try to eliminate some of the “noise” and Spam of the blogosphere. They are looking at high quality Blogs and show them at the top of the page under what is called “Related Blogs”. This is prime real estate for your Blog to be listed in. As an example: Go to the new Google Blog search ( http://blogsearch.google.com ) and type in podcasting tips. The results that are shown at the top 2 of the 3 Related Blogs happen to be authored by me. You will also see over 1600 results and we have several additional results on the front page. This is because we are writing 6 quality Blogs and publishing quality content frequently to these Blogs. http://blog.podblaze.com Google currently does not support a manual submission for your Blog feed. I think this is smart, since it keeps the unethical people out of the picture. If you are Blogging or Podcasting properly and following best practices; your feed will be found by Google. Make sure that you are also following best practices for pinging after your feed is updated. This will ensure that your feed is updated by Google.It looks like Google started to index Blogs, Podcasts and RSS feeds in June of 2005. They are currently not showing posts that were made previous to this. They may change this in the future. Google has found a way to somewhat keep the black hat SEO and unethical Bloggers out of the results. We can all celebrate this; because this means quality and relevant results for searchers. Podcasters should also take note that individual podcast shows are also being listed in the results. This is a great way for users find your podcasts and individual podcast shows, based upon specific topics and content.If you are serious about improving your marketing and the online visibility for your business website; then you need to be creating quality content with a quality Blog or Podcast. If your business wants to get maximum exposure in this important new area of Google you should work with professionals that truly understand this technology. You can look at http://www.leveragedpromotion.com as they have experience with many Blogging, RSS and Podcasting Solutions.About the author:Rodney Rumford has over 18 years of experience in the technology field. He has held management positions in Marketing, Business Dev, Enterprise Consulting, Sales and Engineering. He does corporate consulting in the areas of RSS & Podcasting strategy, execution and marketing. He has developed software solutions in the areas of RSS Feeds, Podcasting and PPC Advertising. He is the CEO of The Info Guru LLC., which operates several web properties that include:

15 Tips to Bring More Traffic to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sat, 05 May 2007 21:52:00 +0000

15 Tips to Bring More Traffic to Your Blog
by: Kevin Oorlynck

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use: 1. Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to "Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts" by TNL.net 2. Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo. 3. Submit to Google's Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google's Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site. 4. Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process. 5. Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post. 6. Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN. 7. Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying? 8. Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT. 9. Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like "I agree." Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder "who wrote this?" 10. Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site. 11. Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists. 12. Add a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block. 13. Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure to use your blog URL like it is your name. 14. Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave. 15. Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted across the web. Sites like Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or "tags" that everyone interested in that tag can see. About the author:Kevin Oorlynck is the editor of the Wealth:Time4Evolution! Newsletter and Webmaster of the Evolution Resources Center ~~ Feel free to reprint this article as long as you let this resource box attached And an active link to Wealth.Time4Evolution.Com is required.

Do Marketers Really Need RSS?

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:42:00 +0000

Do Marketers Really Need RSS?
by: Rok Hrastnik

Copyright 2005 Rok HrastnikThe recent Forrester Research study, which claims that only 2% of online households in North America use RSS, took the internet marketing world by storm. Does this data really mean that marketers can still afford to ignore this channel?Soon after the Forrrester study became public, I received a press enquiery asking whether marketers should be interested in RSS now that so few online adults use it.Is this the correct question to ask? Let’s take a look at the bigger picture …1. THE FORRESTER STUDY VALIDITYThe Forrester study is just one of those available and cannot be considered as the only relevant study, although it was conducted on a sample of 68,000 households. Jupiter Research estimates RSS penetration at 12% of the American online population, while the latest report from PEW shows that 9% of the American online population has a good idea of what RSS is. An October 2004 PEW study actually estimated RSS penetration at 5%.It is also important to understand that Forrester data does not include those that might not even be aware they are using RSS, especially through services such as My.Yahoo, which is actually the most popular RSS reader.Also, at the same time, Forrester Vice President Henry Harteveldt says that ปRSS is critical for any organization that wants to reach out to people under the age of 30ซ.2. THE FUTURE GROWTH OF RSSRegardless of the numbers we put our faith in, the future growth of RSS is without question. Microsoft just recently announced full RSS support in the next edition of their Internet Explorer browser and full RSS integration in the next edition of their operating system, the Windows Vista.Once RSS becomes easily available to most internet users out-of-the-box and becomes as widely spread as bookmarks, its adoption will grow at an incredible rate. Microsoft has now made sure this in fact will happen.Consequently, the time for marketers to not only become interested in RSS but also master it is now. Those that test and discover the best possible ways of using RSS for marketing will be ahead of their competition once everyone starts using RSS.Furthermore, since RSS implementation can actually be free of any charge, there’s no reason not to start providing your content in RSS feeds now.3. GOOGLE SHOWS THE WAYMicrosoft and Yahoo! aren’t the only big players to show support for RSS. Google recently launched RSS advertising as part of their Google AdSense program, giving publishers reason to start their own RSS feeds to generate direct revenues.Those that depend on Google AdSense for part or all of their online revenues actually need to provide RSS feeds, or stand to lose some of those revenues due to their visitors switching to sites and feeds from their competitors.Face it, today many users are already starting to request publishers provide them with RSS to subscribe to their content. This trend will only continue, with many users selecting RSS as their primary channel of receiving and reading online content.4. THE QUESTIONABLE RELIABILITY OF E-MAILAll marketers today are experiencing e-mail delivery problems, constantly wondering whether their messages are getting through or not. Simply put, e-mail can no longer be relied on.For one, offering your content via RSS as a supplement to e-mail will help you make certain that at least a portion of your visitors, those that decide for the RSS option, will be receiving all of your content without any doubt. Lockergnome.com decided to start pushing RSS instead of e-mail some time ago, and as a result saw that their RSS feeds are outperforming e-mail when it comes to clickthrough rates for about 500%. Also an interesting fact, they today have 5 times more RSS subscribers than e-mail subscribers.And two, for your most important content updates, RSS really is becoming a must, especially if you need to be in contact with your existing customers, partners and other key audiences. If you want to be 100% certain that your messages reach your audience, RSS is the way to go.5. OTHER BENEFITS OF RSSBut all of the above don’t even touch all the reasons why marketers should start using RSS today …a) RSS will help you generate additional traffic and reach new audiences. Considering the low cost of RSS implementation, this is reason enough to get started with RSS today.b) RSS helps you to easily get your content published on other sites, thus generating you more credibility and visitors.c) As a publisher you can use RSS to display content from other sources, thus making your site more relevant and interesting to your existing visitors.And the list goes on and on.RSS may not be mainstream yet, but it provides enough advantages even today to make it a must-choice for marketers.About the author:Find out immediately how you can power your online business with RSS and integrate it in all of your marketing. Request the free 28-page Business Case for RSS report, with easy-to-follow instructions, examples and advice on how to get the most out of RSS in the shortest possible time. Get the free download here:

Tools for Online Tracking

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:06:00 +0000

Tools for Online Tracking
by: Sharon Housley

Copyright 2005 Sharon HousleyIn order to determine which advertising and marketing efforts are effective you must have ways to measure the results of those efforts. Alerts and instant notifications can be instrumental in monitoring search engine position, trademarked terms, monitoring competitors and staying abreast of online occurrences. And, of course, the notification can be used for "ego searches".Ego Searches What is an ego search? Find out where your name or company is mentioned, view forum posts or online articles that mention your name or company.TrademarksThe best offense is a good defense. By monitoring newsgroups or search engines for trademarked terms, you often head off a future conflict. As a trademark owner, it is your responsibility to actively protect your mark. Otherwise, you could lose your trademark rights. Monitoring tools send immediate notification should any suspected trademark infringements occur.Search PositionStatistics show that more than 85% of Internet users find web sites with the help of the search engines. Therefore, a website's search engine position is crucial to its success. Prudent webmasters regularly check their search engine position. Monitoring fluctuations and re-indexing of major search engines affects keyword terms and phrases. Monitoring of positions will alert webmasters to any shifts before sales decline.Competitor WatchMonitoring newsgroups for mentions of competitors may allow you opportunities to chime in and offer an alternative solution in a helpful, friendly way. Knowing exactly what your online competitors are doing provides a competitive edge that can be used to your advantage. Website Downtime Accessibility is the most critical measure of your website's performance. If customers can't access your site, they can't shop; and if they can't shop, they can't buy. More important, your business could gain a bad reputation among your customers, which translates into negative word of mouth and even worse, if you're highly visible, negative press. So regardless of what else you monitor, you want to monitor websites for downtime. Take a look at the various tools available and how they can be used to keep you current on relevant issues. WebAlerts - Recieve email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of query or topic. Alerts can be sent based on information in Google News, Google Searches or both. http://www.google.com/webalerts PubSub - PubSub matches your requests against new information as it appears real time. Searches can be categorized to search, blog entries, SEC/EDGAR Filings, press releases, news group posts or flight delays. http://www.pubsub.com Ego Alerts - Google news search turned into an RSS feed.http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php Ebay Alerts - Ebay Alerts monitoring will create an RSS feed to monitor Ebay auctions for specific keywords or phrases. When a new item that contains those keywords is added to Ebay you will receive notification via your RSS feed! http://www.freebiddingtools.comAmazon Alerts - Generate a URL which you can use to automatically search Amazon.com with your favorite RSS news reader. It will automatically update you when new items meet your search criteria. I personally use it to look for new books on topics I'm interested in, and I have the defaults set to do the same, but you can adjust it to search any of Amazon's stores. You can also adjust the search order and what kind of items you wish to search.http://www.oxus.net/amazonInternet Seer - InternetSeer remotely monitors your website to insure that your site is available 24/7. If InternetSeer is unable to reach your site, we will send you an immediate e-mail alert that your site is unreachable. http://www.internetseer.com NetNewsTracker - NetNews Tracker is a clipping service for Usenet newsgroups. Newstracker searches newsgroups twice daily for any specified words or phrases and delivers alerts via e-mail. Newstracker can be used to monitor newsgroups for names, company names, products, URLs, or any other topic of interest.http://www.netnewstracker.comOther Suggested Resources -Monitoring Tools - Monitoring Tools is a directory of online monitoring tools and applicationshttp://www.monitoring-tools.net Monitoring Software - Monitoring Software is a collection of downloadable monitoring software solutions.http://www.monitoring-software.net About the author:Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. and FeedForAll .

Make Money Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:52:00 +0000

Make Money Blogging
by: Matt Bacak

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.2. Updated regularly.3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.Get the above criteria in place and Hurrah... You are ready to Make Money Blogging.Top 5 Ways to Make Money BloggingLets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging:1. Google AdsenseGoogle Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads. Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click.2. AmazonAmazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission.3. BlogadsYou can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks. Alternative Services:• Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues. • Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website. 4. Affiliate ProgramsYour affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions. 5. Text Links Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don’t have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow. About the author:Matt Bacak became "##1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at or

How to Use Your Google API Key as Your Secret Weapon: Part Two (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 07:10:00 +0000

How to Use Your Google API Key as Your Secret Weapon: Part Two (updated)
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaulUnlike part one , the rest of this article series will outline fewer Google API applications, as it focuses on only one thing. By the time you finish reading it, you will know how to implement what in my humble opinion, is the best way to use certain Google API Applications to enhance your own site. This simple idea isn’t new. It has been used by dozens, perhaps hundreds of sites. You may have even attempted to use this idea yourself, but gave up because of the amount of time involved, or how much it used to cost to attempt to put into practice - it used to take weeks just to compile enough information to get started. Now, several Google API applications make this particular kind of major site improvement much faster and easier to carry out. You can now combine free tools that help you create an RSS feed about your site with the power of your free Google API key, to transform your site into an industry leader on your site's topic. You probably already knew that you can collect RSS feeds and have the content displayed on your site, and also create a feed of your site and its updates without spending any money. With your Google API key, you can now leverage the power of the RSS format in less time.What is an RSS feed, and why does your site need one? Briefly, its most common abbreviation is “Really Simple Syndication”. The purpose of an RSS feed is to distribute the headlines of news or content that appears on your site. Once the feed is compiled, all you need to do is syndicate your content - and it doesn’t have to be just yours.RSS has been around for a while, but is becoming progressively popular, as the end-user base increases, and becomes more education. Also, site owners like you and I who are becoming more frustrated with the ever-increasing barriers to distributing newsletters. There’s another reason why your visitors may prefer to subscribe to your RSS feed instead of your newsletter that we’ll get to shortly. For now, let’s focus on the reason you need one.One of the greatest things about using RSS feeds to get your site more visibility is that the headlines don’t need to be just about your particular site, as I mentioned before. You could also turn your web property into the news desk for your entire niche. Especially if no one else is doing this in your field, it can turn your home page into the destination for anyone who wants to know what is happening in your industry. Why would you want to do this?1- More free traffic to your siteOnce you have an RSS feed, you can get additional exposure to your website by promoting your feed at dozens of high-traffic directories. People will go to these sites, looking for an RSS feed about their favorite topic, and sign-up to get the feeds pushed to them - this is great for newsletter publishers not only because these updates can direct them back to your site, but because it cuts out the time you would need to spend managing your ezine. 2- More free traffic to your siteEspecially if you narrowly target the news at your site to a popular but under-served demographic, sooner or later, Google may recognize your site as an industry leader in your category for its fresh relevant content on the subject. As a result, not only can this increase your overall page rank, and get your site spidered more often, the rankings of the keywords you are listed for can also begin to climb as a result. 3- More free traffic to your siteThe sites that index your feed must point to your site in order to access and update it. For sites that carry an information page about the data that your feed contains, it often means a free incoming link from their site to yours, often from a site with high Google Page Ranks.Getting the idea? You can get high-quality, targeted traffic to your site from implementing the steps I'll be outlining in this series. It's quite a project and may take a while, but anyone who can build a site can do it. If you're wary about setting up pages of your site that will have users leaving, you can set up a members-only section that you give away free with purchases of your product, or with subscriptions to your newsletter. Now that you understand the reasoning behind this idea, part three will go through the steps you'll need to take in order to make it work for you. About the author:In the next article, I’ll give you an overview on how you can do this with your own site, using a combination of free RSS tools and Google API implementations, which, as I’ve outlined in the first part, are also available at no cost. You can read part three now at - or for more free traffic secrets, subscribe at ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com

Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds

noreply@blogger.com (tutorial) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:13:00 +0000

Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.
It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.
There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.
Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption
Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.
Hosting
The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.
FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.
Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html
Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.
The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.
Redirects
Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.
Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.
Uniquely Named Transparent Images
Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.
Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics
Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.
http://www.pheedo.com/
SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.
http://www.syndicateiq.com/
FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).
http://www.feedburner.com/
Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.