RSS, I Love You

Date: Jun 4, 2009 Category: Content Promotion

Being a freelance writer means fending for yourself, and utilizing new technology to find jobs and promote your work. A major part of success in freelancing is promotion, and getting your name out to the public. Remember, there is plenty of competition and other freelance writers willing to take the work. Letting your work be seen and read online is free, just use the latest tools to get the work done.

I am surprised that so many freelance writers still have no idea what RSS Feeds are, or how to use them. My online life is busy enough, and despite my best efforts to procrastinate, I actually get work done. This means limiting my web browsing to only necessary websites. When I have no time to browse for pleasure, I use RSS Feeds to keep track of my favorite websites and their newest content.

Windows Vista made my life even easier, with the Favorite Feeds listed on the right hand side of my desktop. I grab a cup of coffee, catch up on news, and my favorite websites first thing in the morning. Then it’s off to get serious work done…

Why am I trying to tell you this? Because RSS Feeds can help promote your blogs, freelancing websites, and even content libraries such as your Associated Content Source page. And, it is completely free.

I use Feedburner.com to create all of my RSS Feeds, including the one for my Associated Content page. After that, I look for free directories that my RSS feed will be accepted at. Normally, this is just a submissions form that accepts a valid RSS Feed url, and that also validates the contents of my feed. I do the same for my blog feed.

A valid RSS Feed will help promote content, bring in visitors, generate higher page views, and it can help with search engine optimization. When it comes to SEO, RSS Feeds can get tricky for beginners. There is a lot of involvement in optimizing a feed, but it does produce good results.

Today I submitted my blog and AC page to several RSS Feed directories. AC does not allow me to view any stats, but my blog does. I see that sixteen RSS bots have crawled my pages, and “burnt” feeds. Each of them displays content somewhere in the blogosphere, giving me greater chance of exposure. We all know in AC terms that visitors mean article viewership, and that in turn means money for us writers.

I plan to go into further detail about RSS, since it can be so beneficial to my fellow writers. I’ll share with you several websites I’ve used for RSS Feed submission, and as I mentioned before, it is completely free.

http://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp

http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html

http://www.feedage.com

http://www.blogstreet.com/bsibin/add.cgi

http://publisher.yahoo.com/rss_guide/submit.php