RSS - What is it?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a way of allowing your blog visitors to have your blog posts automatically delivered using a method of their choice rather than having to manually visit your web page every day to check for updates. This is particularly helpful when somebody reads many blogs as they can use a tool called an RSS reader to read all of those blogs in one place.
Each separate blog will publish a unique URL, this is the RSS feed and is what any visitors will need to use to subscribe to the blog via RSS. All of the blog platforms, including WordPress, have RSS technology built in already which is great as this means that there is very little that you need to do to set it up. The chances are, in fact, that if you’ve already chosen the theme to use, you won’t have to do anything at all.
What you should look for is that the RSS icon is prominently displayed in the top part of your blog theme. If the reader has to scroll to see it, pick another one. Make sure the icon is fairly large and prominent. Basically, you want to ensure that your reader’s eye is drawn towards it. If it is hidden away then it won’t get used.
Should You Choose a Full or Partial Feed?
RSS contains a feature that will allow just a small section of your post to be sent to the RSS feed, then if the reader chooses to view the whole post, they must then follow the link to your website to be able to read it. Watch out though as the WordPress default is to publish the entire post to the feed. You can check and change your settings by going to the WordPress Dashboard, then going to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Reading’.
There are good and bad points to each method. If you publish the entire post to the RSS feed it means that the reader will no longer need to visit your website as they can view all of your posts on their RSS reader. It may be that that scenario does not suit you, as it would mean that the reader will not see any of the ads on your pages. However, Google have recently changed this by setting up a system that will allow ads to be embedded straight in to your feed.
Now there is something to understand about RSS readers - these are people who understand the Internet, they know what RSS is, they have chosen their RSS reader, they have decided to subscribe to your feed because they want to hear what you have to say and so they are far less likely to click on an ad than somebody who arrived at your website from a search engine. Also, these people are hungry for information which is why they are using RSS in the first place.
Using their RSS reader means that they can read all the blogs that they have subscribed to swiftly without having to visit lots of different websites. This creates the down side to only publishing a partial feed as these people are much less likely to bother to follow the link to your website to read the whole post. A lot of these readers will probably even unsubscribe and so your posts will not get viewed at all.
I would recommend that, if you want to grow a social blog and you are keen to build up a loyal audience who will read everything you write, you will need to make it a full feed. But if you are looking to create a commercial blog that is monetized heavily, and that you are not so concerned about readership, you can do a partial feed.
However, the best revenue from your blog does not come from on-page ads! When you learn to use your blog to launch much bigger revenue streams then it doesn’t matter if people read your content through your RSS feed or your webpage so for nearly all cases I would recommend a full feed.
Utilization of a Feedburner
If you are using the default WordPress theme then you don’t need to do anything in order for your viewers to be able to subscribe to your feed. This would mean, however, that you would not be able to see your subscription numbers. If you want to know how many people are subscribing to your feed then you can use the Feedburner service to track this.
Feedburner is a completely free service which is run by Google and it is extremely easy to setup. Once you have signed up all you need to do is to give Feedburner the URL of your original blog feed and it will create a new Feedburner URL for you. Then you edit your WordPress theme to use this URL instead.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a nice piece of software that allows you to track all kinds of stats about your website such as how much traffic you have had, what keywords are used to find you, other links that point to you, the location of your visitors and a lot more. It’s damn good software and it’s completely free!
When you are signed up, you will have to insert a website profile for your blog. All you have to do is just add the URL of your blog and maybe reset your time zone if you wish. It will then give you some code that you will need to display on your web pages - Just click on this code and copy it to the clipboard.
You can manually add the code on to your WordPress blog but this will involve editing your theme files, but if you change themes, you will then have to do it again. Alternatively, I would recommend Semiologic as this will manage your Analytics for you. The download page shows complete instructions about how to use the plugin, so it need not be repeated here.
Caroline Middlebrook has been writing a popular blog since 2007 which brings in 4-figures a month. She demonstrates how to make money with blogs and provides free downloads of her free guides & courses.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on marketing online
- The Bum Marketing Methodology For Making Money Online Using the …
- 8 Points Online Marketing Plan for Authors | Ministry Marketing …
- MP3 Search