Once you have an RSS feed on your site, you'll want to let people know about it. There are a few things you can do to advertise and promote your RSS feed, and the more of them that you do, the more that your feed will be noticed and aggregated.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: varies
Here's How:
- Validate your RSS feed. RSS is an XML specification, and XML is very strict, so avoid problems from the start by validating.
- Link to your RSS feed file. Most Weblog tools have this as an automatic option, or you can add a link using an XML button (like you see on many blogs) linking to the RSS file.
- Help spiders find your syndication. Add the following HTML tag to the <head> of your document:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="YOUR SITE TITLE RSS Feed" href="URL TO RSS FILE" />
- List your site on the major RSS news feeds. Some of the most popular are Syndic8.com and News Is Free.
- Keep adding to your syndication. Syndication is only as useful as your site. If you hardly ever update your site, then syndicating it has little value. Just like in standard promotion the more you post the more there is to read.
Tips:
- Make sure that your RSS is valid, and keep (X)HTML markup out of it if at all possible.
- Use tools like TrackBack to alert people of new posts, and get them interested in your syndication.
What You Need:
- A Web site or blog
- RSS feed
