What do Atom and RSS feeds do? An Atom or RSS feed is used to syndicate content on the internet. It’s important because it allows you to build a subscriber base and drive more traffic to your blog. The information below explains how both consumers and content publishers use feeds.
- To read content from multiple online sources. Have you ever seen the icon above and wondered what they mean? It represents RSS and if you click on it , you’ll have the option to save the feed in your favorite news aggregator where you’ll get updated any time there is a new post or update from that site.
A news aggregator is a tool that allows you to collect RSS feeds from your favorite websites and then read them all from one central location – some popular options are: Google Reader | Newsgator | Netvibes | Pageflakes.
Content Publisher:
- To distribute content by submitting an RSS feed to blog directories, social media and public relations sites.
- To increase subscription by placing an RSS link on your blog. This makes it easy for visitors to add your blog to their RSS aggregator and receive your new blog posts when they are published. Building your RSS subscriber list will help increase traffic on your blog and therefore increase your Adsense revenue.
Placing a link to your RSS or Atom feed on your blog in a prime location will allow readers to subscribe and distribute your content. Once you’ve become familiar with RSS and Atom feeds, you can use other tools such as Feedburner to manage your subscribers and get statistical data about the people using your feed.
