Easy RSS Feed
Posted on January 17, 2006
I barely broke a sweat!
Last month I clicked one button and a new RSS Feed was created for me.
The content was all my own words, and contained my own affiliate links but I didn’t do any extra writing or use any new software to create it.
As if that wasn’t enough of a treat, when I went to promote the feed to the RSS directories two days later I found that 80% of the directories returned this error message to me:
“We already have that RSS Feed URL in our database.”
Okay, so I am getting older, but I’m not senile yet! I knew I hadn’t submitted that feed…
This was just getting too easy.
How did all this happen? What was the magic button I pushed?
It was in my auto-responder account - a service I use to keep in touch with subscribers anyway. But now, due to that one click activation, I have the potential to attract a lot more visitors, a lot more subscribers and much more income as a result.
I didn’t need a blog to do it. (Actually you don’t even need a website!)
All that’s required is an autoresponder account that allows you to not only email your subscribers but also to publish that same content to an RSS Feed on their server. Every time you add a message, the RSS Feed is updated. It doesn’t matter if the links within are to affiliate sites or your own web pages - although I personally prefer to have all links pointing back to my sites.
But here’s where I really love this RSS Feed creation technique…
Not only did I just click one button, one time, to create and maintain my new feed, but I didn’t even need to promote it to the directories. You see this new feed is hosted on the auto-responder’s site and the search engines know about it within days (in my case it was only 2 days).
I’m guessing, but this likely happens for one of two reasons:
- the autoresponder site is so well respected by the search engines and directories it is spidered repeatedly throughout the day for new content, or
- because the autoresponder service is so efficient it automatically promotes my new feed on it’s own,
- or both.
No matter how you slice it this is a huge time saver, a nice bonus to having an autoresponder account, and a great way to draw in some fresh visitors to your links and keep your search engine popularity high.
The two top auto-responder services online are Get Response and Aweber. I’ve used both, they’re both similar in the perks they offer, but I stuck with Aweber because I always receive efficient, personalized emails to my questions, have used the online chat and help function during business hours, and my emails make it to my subscribers.
Now if you need help setting up this auto-create, near perfect auto-submission of a new RSS Feed using your existing content from within your own auto-responder account and you’re using Aweber, don’t hesitate to leave a comment here asking for help - I’ll walk you through it in more detail.
But if you’re using GetResponse, I’ll have to leave you in the hands of their support staff - I haven’t had an account with them for over 6 months and much has changed since then!
Do not sit on this. It will take you less than 5 minutes to click that button and have a new feed that looks after itself! At the very least it provides off-site links (from your autoresponder server to your web pages) always a good strategy for search engine positions!
———————-
Finally, before I leave you for the day….
The ‘other side’ of using your auto-responder account with RSS.
a) you have a blog (any blog, hosted anywhere),
b) you want subscribers,
c) you add a link in your blog,
d) every time you post to your blog, your subscribers receive an email.You can read more about that on this page Easily Manage Blog Subscribers and Why Not to Use A Plugin For Blog Subscribers
———————
I know this is going to be confusing for some people. Please don’t hesitate to ask for help. An autoresponder account is truly one of the top key ‘tools’ to online income success. Use it to its full potential and you’ll be richly rewarded!
Laura Childs
www.smartzville.com
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16 Replies to “Easy RSS Feed”
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Laura
I have a purse site and have a sign up page going for a new ebook that is about to be released. http://www.purseit .com/html/purse_party_signup.html I’m using Aweber for this and would love to know how to set up this RSS feed. Thanks in advance.
Dennis
I have had aweber for ages…I saw all their reports on RSS…and stupidly ignored them. Thanks for waking me up! I will jump right on this…ps. I love your course!
I like the idea!
One of the problems that I have found by using popular ezine distributors is that somewhere in the many links that “stuff” goes through to the destination a blockage occurs.
The world is focussed on stopping spam and unseemly content that distribute through the same origins as respectable users. Has this been a problem with the 2 distributors that you recommend.
Thanks buddy, Excellent tip. Love u for this!
I’m new to RSS and I want to find out how to use RSS and blogs to generate website traffic. I am familiar with dreamweaver, autoresponders, and the basic concept of a blog. But now I wanto to fully exploit RSS/blogs. Where to start? Any comments much appreciated.
Russell
Hi Laura,
I have a RSS Feed on my Site but I don’T think it’s picked up much.
Can I configure it with my own autoresponder to get more exposure?
Thanks John M
Do you have any knowledge with ARP Pro Autoresponder. I would love to set this up on my sites.
Thanks
Mike
Hi Laura,
As always, your news is right on and to the point. Thank you for the great content about RSS Feeds.
I will be using Aweber for my Blog, as soon as I find a good host that will allow me to install Wordpress instantly.
I will get back in touch with you at that time.
Sincerely,
Ed
Hi Ed, click my favorite host here or at the bottom of this page. It will take you to HostGator.
I recommend them because I use them, and think their service and prices are superb! My IP blocks don’t get blocked, I get 24/7 online chat support…
But perhaps best of all - you can do a one click (or maybe 3 clicks - either way it’s fast and easy) of WordPress through cPanel with your Host account!
Need more help? I’ve just posted a new mini walkthrough of how to install WordPress with a cPanel managed host.
Laura Childs
p.s. I promise to reply to all here over the weekend - one by one.
Mike:
I have never heard of the Pro Version of ARP.
However, I do know a few marketers swear by ARP for being a feature rich and economical auto-responder.
John Barbour recommends this software and would hopefully be happy to answer your ARP autoresponder questions.
Click over to his list building web site, his email address is on the Support page.
Laura
Dennis:
Aweber will take your Broadcast messages for any of your lists, and turn them into items of an RSS Feed that aweber will host on it’s site.
Therefore every time you send your purse subscribers a broadcast message that feed is updated (and it seems, from my tests that some of the RSS directories are notified of the new content).
Now I am not sharing this as some new and brilliant marketing technique as the feed created by aweber is not an optimum feed, but it is an extra link to your site (from a highly trusted source), it requires only one button click (within aweber, with your list selected, under the Messages tab, Broadcast Edit selected, at the very bottom of every individual message you will see the RSS/HTML feed options.
Now aweber has set this up so you can link to and include the urls on your site - but you don’t need to do this to benefit your site’s positioning - especially since you have a keyword rich domain.
Just keep in mind it is for broadcast messages only and the content has the potential to be seen by thousands of people that you might only want to go to your subscribers.
If you are planning on using the RSS-Broadcast feature of aweber just for a keyword rich feed linking back to your site (that doesn’t contain subscriber-only content), create a new list in aweber for this purpose.
Truly though the best part of aweber’s RSS capability is the ‘other side’. The Feed Broadcast where you take your blog’s existing RSS Feed to maintain a blog subscriber base. (The Feed Broadcaster automatically emails your subscribers on every post. Explained in depth here: http://www.smartzville.com/autorss.htm ).
I know this all seems confusing until you give it a whirl. Just login to your aweber account account (with your office door closed and your phone turned off) and poke around in the articles and options until it all starts to make sense.
If you get stuck, leave me a note and I’ll try to clarify further.
Laura
PBTS, thanks for your comment and compliments! I owned an English Bull Terrier for years so I’m glad to see you’re promoting training of the breeds.
There’s a lot of controversy in Canada right now about the bull breeds and to be honest I’m sick over it. My bully put up with many unintentional torture tests from my daughter when she was tiny and never once complained. It’s all how you raise them.
Peter my friend how have you been?
I haven’t heard from you for 6 months or so! How’s married life treating you?
Now I have to be honest, but I also must say this comment is in no way intended to harm or promote either service.
I have known of a few other marketers (personally) who I worked this through with, who had GetResponse accounts and whose emails I never received. They switched their lists over to aweber (which is no easy feat I hear) and presto their emails started getting better response rates.
All things being equal (?) I do know that aweber has personal contacts with the big email services (aol.com, yahoo.com, etc.) and I believe that’s why more of their messages get through to subscribers. Aweber opens their doors and shows the email providers their opt-in and CAN-SPAM compliance features as well as using a variety of sendmail servers.
I am not aware of GetResponse performing similar best practices but they could be.
I only know what I’ve seen first hand and the rumblings from other website promotion experts in the business.
Great success with your business, and stay in touch!
Laura
To clarify…
Two ways of working with RSS and your autoresponder.
In aweber:
1. “I already have a feed, send all updates to my subscribers.” Use Feed Broadcaster if you have a feed (from a blog or a manually created RSS Feed) and you want subscribers to receive new messages every time you make a blog post or add an item to your feed.
2. “I don’t have my own feed, but I do have messages in my broadcast messages sequence. Publish those to an RSS Feed for me.” Use the RSS/HTML button at the bottom of all broadcast message pages to create a new feed that is hosted on aweber. In this scenario your newly created RSS Feed will be located at
http://www. aweber. com/z/rss/?yourlistname
When you choose both options here’s how it all fits together…
a) you have an existing feed on your site
b) aweber checks your site and sends updates to your subscribers
c) aweber also adds each update to your broadcast messages folder
d) and aweber republishes the content on it’s domain
Twice the bang for your buck. Hope this helps.
Laura Childs
Will give Aweber a go.
Married life v good.
So good I have neglected this area of endeavour. I do read your thoughts each time they come ..smart girl! Have you a summary ezine that puts blogs broadcasting and lists in perspective…So I can catch up!
How are the Canadians going to go in Commonwealth games.
Temp here today is 95 -100 !! cheers as always Peter
Hi Laura
You came highly recommended and having read this article alone I can see why.
Looks like I have a less than optimal set up of an MT blog and a 1Shoppingcart autoresponder ( remnant of an old installation) which I am frankly making little or no use of. I need a radical rethink here!
Should I ditch the MT installation? I have Wordpress as an optional installation on my server in Fantastico.
Will be reading a lot more over the weekend.
John