SEO and RSS: Suggestions for Marketing Strategies

RSS used to be associated solely with professional news outlets as a way to syndicate news articles.  Now RSS is used more broadly for virtually any type of web feed that publishes updates on a regular basis.  This makes RSS feeds ideal for blogs, video features, and even audio reports.  You can reach a wider audience quickly and automatically.  For this reason, RSS feeds are being used more frequently for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.

RSS feed content can greatly impact your search engine rankings.  Because content is fresh and original, search engines will view your site as being more relevant and rank you high on search engine results pages (SERPs). In order to take advantage of this, there are specific factors you should reflect on when incorporating RSS in your online marketing strategy.

1.     Own Your URL

Have your RSS feed on your own site using your URL.  If your feed is only on hosted sites, you lose control over it if that host service shuts down for any reason.  It is just common sense that you want to make sure your feed is live at all times and you are not at risk of losing content if you manage it directly from your own site.

2.     Make Subscribing Easy

Subscribers should be able to use your home page address to sign up for your feed even if you have an RSS address.  Obviously you also want to include RSS buttons on your web pages so that visitors can simply click the button to subscribe.  If your feed is listed on sites other than your own, the subscription process is probably determined by the host site.  It is a good idea to test scribe to your feed on other sites just to make sure it works correctly.  Should there be a problem, notify the host site administrator immediately.

3.     Think Beyond the Blog

While many site owners use RSS for their blog entries, it is useful for so much more.  You can use it to publish updates on your web page content, videos, audio presentations, and even press releases.  Let customers know about new sales, the most popular products or services you offer, or upcoming events you are sponsoring.  Take advantage of the fact that feeds are great for letting search engines know that your site has been updated with new content.  The more frequently you update your feed, the higher your site is likely to appear on SERPs.  Your Page Rank will continue to improve with your RSS feed as long as you are routinely adding new information.

4.     Placement of Feed on Page

Most websites have content that exceeds the average browser window.  So, you want your visitors to know immediately that you have an RSS feed to which they can subscribe.  Your RSS button should be placed near the top of each of your web pages. This is especially important if you have web pages that require multiple scrolls to get through. Site visitors are not always patient enough to get to the bottom of your web page and can easily miss the fact that you have a feed unless it is prominently displayed on your site.

5.     Avoid JavaScript

When adding your RSS feed to your site, stay away from JavaScript.  Search engines do not like JavaScript so you risk your feed not being indexed if you use it.  In fact, your entire site may be de-indexed if you use JavaScript for your feed.  The better option is HTML or PHP code. Your feed content has to be embedded directly in your site for search engines to read it. Also, keep in mind that many readers may have JavaScript turned off in their browsers which will make it impossible for them to read your feeds if you use it. If you are unsure how to properly add RSS to your site, contact a consultant who has the expertise to assist you so you get it right the first time.

6.     Use Keywords in Headlines

This is a must for SEO.  Remember that readers will see your headlines first so this is the optimal place to include keywords or search terms.  Use headlines to grab readers’ attention while providing some information about your content.  You can also include your website name if it makes sense to do so.  The headlines of feeds are much like title tags for web pages – they are the first thing search engines “read” when indexing so make full use of that fact by optimizing your headlines.

7.     Be Creative with Feed Descriptions

Remember, this is part of your marketing strategy, so think like a marketer.  Write enough information that readers have a sense of what your feed is about, incorporating teasers to grab and hold their interest long enough to link to your feed.  You do not need to provide a summary of the feed in your description.

8.     Optimize Feed Content

Because you are providing fresh content through your feed, you are already doing this to some extent.  However, you can also include your keywords as well as other search terms in your content. Don’t include too many keywords, just incorporate a few naturally into the information so that the search engines can easily identify them and include your feed on SERPs.

9.     Consider Personalizing Feeds

This has to do with your content.  Having one feeder on your site that handles all of your updates may not be reader-friendly if subscribers only want information on a particular type of update.  For example, perhaps a large portion of your subscribers only want to read your new blog entries.  You might consider have two feeds – one solely for your blog, the other that is all-inclusive and contains everything including your blog postings.  You should do this only if you have received feedback from subscribers indicating this preference or if you notice you are losing subscribers.  Too many feeds on your site are equally problematic so you will need to figure out how to balance your content among a few feeds.

10.     Build Brand Identity

You can easily accomplish this by using your logo or other corporate graphics in your feed.  Any time you use images you have the ability to optimize them using the ALT tag to describe each image.  Incorporate keywords and search terms where appropriate. You can also include your brand or corporate name in headlines.

11.     Include Feeds in Link Building Campaign

RSS feeds provide a wealth of link building opportunities that is crucial for SEO.  Because you are syndicating your content to other sites, you are establishing inbound links. This should be considered in the larger link building campaign if you have one.  If you do not, look into whether you should develop one that complements your feeds so that you are leveraging your link building power.

12.     Submit Feeds to Authority Sites and Directories

Carefully select where you include your feeds.  You want your content on the best directories or aggregators as well as sites that are ranked high on SERPs and are considered to be high-trust domains.  Unsure how to determine which directories are the best?  You can simply type the directory’s domain name in any search engine and see where they appear on SERPs.  If they are not within the top 10 or 20 (page 1 or page 2) then you probably want to avoid that directory or conduct further research to make sure it is a valid site for your RSS.  Do your homework to get the best syndication services available. Including your RSS feed on search engine RSS directories is essential for SEO success.

13.     Subscribe to Your Feed

Why is this important?  You want to make sure your presentation is exactly as you envision it.  The best way to do this is to see what your readers see.  Test links and make adjustments as needed to improve your feed appearance. After your initial subscription, periodically verify that the feed is still working properly.

14.     Measure Impact

As with anything you do related to SEO, you want to see how your feed is performing.  Measure how many new subscribers you are getting – are you meeting your goals? Track reads as well as clickthroughs to determine the overall success of your feeds.  You can code this into your feed directly or use a third party to provide data on your readers and subscribers.

RSS is a great way to keep your customers current on your site updates. Because you can optimize RSS feeds for the various search engines, you have the opportunity to attract significant traffic to your site.  RSS feeds are cached pretty fast which means they can be indexed by search engines quickly and be included on SERPs sooner than general content updates.  This improvement in speed benefits your overall SEO strategy.

As an SEO tool, RSS is necessary in today’s online environment. When implemented correctly, it is a reliable and effective way to increase traffic to your site, build your customer base, and earn more money.  And, by routinely publishing fresh content, you can quickly improve your rankings on search engines.

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