What is Really Simple Syndication (RSS)?
If you are looking for more internet traffic to your website, RSS is the answer. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a quick and easy way to distribute news. To start broadcasting news/updates via RSS all you need is the content you wish to disseminate and a RSS based text file.
RSS is a lightweight XML format for sharing headlines and other web content. This is similar to having the NEWS Updates or WHATS News link on your site. RSS has solved many problems of how to distribute news and increase traffic to a website, a problem faced by numerous website owners. Today, RSS has grown to be the most popular means of sharing web content between sites including BBC and National Geographic just to name a few.
Here’s how it works. First you need to generate one or more RSS files on your website. Drop the headline into the <title> element with a brief outline of the article(s) and provide a link <url> to the main article. Then register your XML URL on as many aggregators as you can. Traffic to your site will automatically increase as users add your RSS channel to their websites.
RSS in essence is an XML based file defined with XML grammar. Each file consists of static information about your website as well as dynamic information of the news / updates that you wish to broadcast. This content is defined within XML defined start and end tags.
There are four basic tags in an RSS document. Each individual news article is surrounded with an <item> tag. Nested within each of these tags is <title>, <link>, <description> and optionally any others. Each RSS channel can have as many as 15 items.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<item>
<title>eBusiness Connection</title>
<link>
www.e-bc.ca
</link>
<description>
To help BC businesses remain competitive in our rapidly changing information economy, Western Economic Diversification, BC's Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development and the Leadership and Management Development Council of BC founded the eBusiness Connection. A BC-based not-for-profit e-business resource centre, eBC was created in response to the entrepreneurial community's demand for more and better e-business and e-commerce resources. We offer a unique and comprehensive collection of e-business information services to help BC's small businesses adapt to technological change, and maintain and grow their businesses.
</description>
</item>
source:
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/rss/3223484.stm
To start receiving RSS Feeds you need to have a news reader. There are many different versions of news readers, some of which are downloadable and some of which are accessible via the browser. Once you have chosen the content you want, you then need to decide on the content that you would like to subscribe to. You will know whether this content is accessible via xml/ rss feeds if you see the  or a similar looking RSS Button. Clicking this button would take you to the location of the XML file, stored on the content provider’s web server. You can then just copy the URL of the specified file into the relevant area of your news reader or simply drag and drop the RSS feed into the news reader. Some browsers already have the functionality of incorporating RSS Feeds.
You can downloaded newsreaders by visiting any of the following links.
Windows:
News Crawler
FeedDemon
Awasu
Mac OS X:
Newsfire
NetNewsWire
Web:
Bloglines
NewsGator
Benefits of RSS
In recent years, RSS has gained popularity and webmasters are now looking at using RSS for delivering web content in new and innovative ways. More often than not, RSS Feeds contain a title and a brief description of the article, with a link to it. This provides the reader with just about enough information without overburdening the audience with needless information. In case a reader is interested in a particular topic they always have the option of clicking on the link for reviewing any further details regarding the article. RSS readers can also aggregate multiple feeds enabling users to efficiently scan information from different source.
RSS augments more conventional communication techniques, but does not overburden the content provider with the task of maintaining mailing list and does not infringe on the reader’s privacy as the reader subscribes to the particular feed out of choice. The subscriber and the provider thereby circumvent the obstacle of spamming, which they otherwise encounter with more conventional content delivery methods.
Using RSS, readers can opt into feeds of interest thereby filtering the content that they are reading to that which is of topical interest to them. The user can always opt out incase the quality of the source content deteriorates.
RSS feeds encourage more people to come back to your site. It enables keyword rich, categorized material maintaining an ongoing communication between existing and possibly new customers.
Market you website using RSS
RSS is just beginning to catch the attention of mainstream internet traffic. With the introduction of new and easier ways to read RSS many users will soon turn to RSS as a means of quickly scanning the web for information. If your site has RSS capability it is not unrealistic to say that within as short a time as six months, you will witness an explosion in the traffic coming your way.
Marketing your website through RSS entails making headlines for the content of your site and getting notice by search engines, as a consequence. It also implies getting searched by newswires and other websites that are using RSS feeds to keep their content updated.
Additional reading
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