According to Technorati, there are over 15 million blogs as of July 2005. And during July, an average of 80,000 new blogs were created each day. If you own a blog, how are you going to promote it in order to stay ahead of the competition?

Fortunately, there is a simple, yet very effective method: RSS directory submission. Submitting your RSS newsfeed to specialized news directories benefits your site in several ways.

RSS directory submission increases your readership. When a person is looking for newsfeeds to add to their RSS reader, it is highly likely they will visit an RSS directory to find newsfeeds on their subject of interest. I recently visited a directory looking for personal business blogs. I subscribed to several, and now read them via RSS on a regular basis. Someone else may have an excellent business blog, but since they weren't listed in the directory, I was unable to discover their site.

RSS directory submission enables your content to be duplicated and linked to from other sites. One of the key benefits of syndicating content through RSS is that it increases your reach. You can publish an article, then have excerpts of that article placed on hundreds of other websites ? with links back to the original on your site. Many webmasters want to have fresh content for their visitors, and embedding an RSS newsfeed is the easiest way to do that. You'll want to make sure that you are listed in RSS directories when a webmaster visits looking for website content ? or your competitors may get the free promotion!

RSS directory submission provides immediate link popularity. RSS directories are similar to other web directories ? you get a free, one-way link back to your site when you are listed. Think about this. Most RSS directories carry a pagerank (PR) of 5 or higher. When you multiply that over 50 RSS directories, that is a lot of links back to your site ? meaning increased search engine rank and more visitors.

There are several ways you can submit your RSS newsfeed to directories. The first, obviously, is by hand. You can get a list of the directories (http://www.rss- software.net/rss-directories.php), then go to each website and add your feed manually. Since there are many RSS directories, this can take quite a while. To save the webmaster time, two ways of automated directory submission exist.

The first one is RSS Submit (http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html), a program that automates the directory submission process. All you have to do is open the software, enter the URL for your feed, and RSS Submit will instantly send the feed information to approximately 40 directories. You can also manually submit your site to another 25 directories using RSS Submit's auto-fill function.

The second method is appropriately named: RSS Directory Submission Service (http: //www.rssdirectorysubmission.com). This service is similar to RSS Submit ? you give them your feed URL, and they submit it to over 50 directories. The difference between the two is price: while RSS Submit costs $44.95 for a personal, non- commercial license. RSS Directory Submission Service charges $8.95 per feed submission. And since sites usually only have one feed, the RSS Directory Submission Service is more economical for most RSS publishers.

Regardless of the RSS directory submission method you choose, make sure to do it! You will find the effort small compared to the benefits you receive.

Josiah Mackenzie is a entrepreneur who shares business tips and advice through his website: http://www.josiahmackenzie.com.

His latest project is an RSS/Blog Directory: http://www.rss-blog-directory.com