RSS Feeds/Dynamic Content

RSS Feeds produce content that the search engines love.

If you're having a hard time maintaining your rankings, RSS might provide the solution you need.

Targeted content attracts the search spiders, but new content keeps them visiting your site frequently. Placing an RSS feed on your site provides the perfect balance between static content geared towards keyword dominance and dynamic content designed to generate repeat visits to your site. You could say that dynamic content makes your site "stickier".

You might be wondering whether dynamic content could negatively affect your rankings.

After all, if you've already established a presence on specific keywords, why dilute that rapidly changing content? Well, the good news is that you don't have to plug in just any content into your site. RSS has grown rapidly and your options are broad. You can, in fact, create feeds targeted to your niche keywords. This will pull in content related to your site theme, and only that.

How to Get Started

First things first, it's time to seek out some feeds! Here is a list to get you started:

http://www.syndic8.com/
http://www.feedster.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/rss
http://www.feedroll.com/
http://www.2rss.com/index.php

Now, how do you get those feeds onto your site? The method can vary from service to service.

Usually, you'll be given a snippet of code to paste into your web page. This code will automatically pull in the content for you. Your job from that point onward is to decide where on the page you want to place the code. You can create a separate directory for this if you wish. You can also feature the feeds on your index page in side bars or even as content for the main body of the page. Then, just sit back and watch the magic ranking-boosting power of dynamic content.

Add an Extra Layer

You don't have to limit yourself to syndicating other people's content. You can also syndicate your articles. This tactic is equivalent to traditional article distribution on steroids. You no longer have to wait for your content to get picked up by human editors.

Further, you have a great deal of control over targeting. You can syndicate your content only to those sites which match your business category. This will ensure that your articles come up only on relevant sites.

Syndicating your own content is a little bit trickier than syndicating other people’s content.

You need to implement an RSS feed on your site and provide other webmasters with your piece of "syndication script" to paste onto their web pages. The heart of your RSS feeds lives in an .xml file. However, your syndication module is usually created in another language like PHP or .ASP. PHP is probably the "easiest" for a newbie to start with.

The following resources will help you get your feet wet:

*Desktop solution for managing and formatting your syndicated content http://www.icontent-delivery.com/synmain/

What is RSS? *A comprehensive tutorial on RSS from the developers http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

Yes, the learning curve for RSS syndication is steeper than most other marketing tools you've used in the past. The effort is worth it, though. Dynamic content is the wave of the future, so don't get left behind!