RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is an excellent way to add content to your website. More relevant content on your website means a higher search engine ranking and a benefit to your visitors. Here’s how to add RSS to your website.
Step 1 Find a reader to subscribe to. There are many available online. A quick Google Search will provide you with many to choose from. Look for ones that offer PHP scripts rather than JavaScript. JavaScript isn’t read by search engine spiders and the content will not help your search engine ranking.
Step 2 Register. Generally all you need to provide is an email address and your website URL. A confirmation will be sent to your email along with a password and logon.
Step 3 Confirm via email and logon with your assigned password and logon ID.
Step 4 Customize your content. Choose the topics you want to cover. For example Google News, Yahoo Finance, or Reuters Health. You can choose several. Make certain to choose topics that are relevant to your website subject. You wouldn’t want to choose finance if your site offers health information.
Step 5 Choose keywords. You can customize your feeds by choosing specific keywords. For example, if you have a website dedicated to fitness you can add the keyword “fitness” to your code.
Step 6 Choose appearance. You can customize the shape and size of your content block. Whether there are pictures included, the author, the title of the article and so on. This is usually a check the box type menu.
Step 7 Choose formatting. Here you can choose the font you want, size of font, and the general formatting of your feed.
Step 8 Generate the code and follow the directions to get it onto your website. Generally the code is given to you in PHP or JavaScript. PHP is recommended because JavaScript is not read by search engine spiders. If you’re using RSS to add content to your site, you’ll want to use the PHP script offered. PHP isn’t automatically added to HTML so if you have an HTML based site, you’ll need to add a bit of code to it to have it recognize the PHP. No worries, the RSS feed you use will offer you instructions on how to do that.
RSS is a technology that is fairly easy to use and it can add significant content and value to your website. All it takes is a few simple steps and you’re done. Quality content with the click of a button.
