A lot of commotion was made some time ago when webmasters discovered RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as a method of disseminating information like ezines, articles and website updates.

For a while it was even being tauted has the big replacement for email marketing.

A few caught on to it's potential while others passed it off as the latest internet fad that would soon come and go. And there for a while it looked like they might have been right.

But, as it appears from our tracking of RSS development I see that it's popularity has grown tremendously (to include blogs) and is being used a lot more to provide fresh content for websites and is fast being considered one of the best ways to keep search engine spiders coming back.

Search engines love fresh relevant content. Note the keyword in the last sentence is 'relative'.

At first you had to be pretty tech savvy to figure out how to set up an RSS feed and get if listed so people could find and benefit from it. But that process has gotten easier - a lot easier.

As a matter of fact there are a couple of software programs that we know of that provide methods for webmasters to get the great benefits of more search engine traffic using RSS feed criteria. I use one and it does work beautifully. You can judge for yourself by going here http://www.cashway.com/rs

In case you're new to RSS and you wonder what it can do for you and your website here's a brief summary.

By definition, RSS is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing things like news headlines and other web page content. But the bottom line is, RSS is simply a popular and convenient method of sharing content between websites.

You see, regardless of what topic or subject matter you've built your website around, there's valuable content available out there such as... articles and information written by an expert in that particular field. And since that kind of content already exists - AND a large portion of it is available through the magic of RSS feed capability - YOU don't have to create the content yourself.

So how does that help you?

Let's face it - most webpages can't get a good page rank because the competition is so fierce. To add to it, the tactics now being used by everyone arn't working very well. RSS is still in it's infancy, why dare I say it's barely out of the womb. But the internet world is starting to take notice and beginning to understand it's impact as a marketing tool as well as a viable way to improve a sites search engine rank.

So Now...

- You spend less time writing fresh new web content.

- Your website can be displaying quality theme-based content... automatically!

- Content is always highly relevant to what you're promoting.

- Search Engines make more frequent visits because your site is constantly updating.

- You have more time to market your site, products, etc.

- Having quality fresh new content gets your web pages indexed faster.

- Usable on any website or as many pages as you want.

- RSS content (through topic channels) has the potential to deliver highly relevant content to site visitors.

- RSS compliments your website and marketing efforts.

That's all well and good you say, but is there a downside to using RSS feeds on my site?

Good question.

Not really, but there may be a couple of items you need to take into considerations before you jump into the RSS game.

First you need to find relevant feeds for your site. Not an overwhelming task but something you'll want to spend a little time searching for on Google or other major search engines.

You'll need a feed reader in order to display the content on your site and make it available to search engine spiders. You can easily do a search on google to find free rss readers for your site.

You'll then need to do a little copy and paste of the html code into the webpages you want the content to appear on. This can be a daunting task especially if you have a site with a lot of pages that you want the search engines to spider. But if you strategicaly place the code on pages that spiders have visited you will have spiders looking for more pages with relative, fresh content.

In the long run once you have RSS feeds on the pages you know are going to be spidered then all of the tedious work is done and you can spend your time on other issues.

You can see how to automate this process by going to http://www.cashway.com/rs or you can start using our RSS feed on internet marketing by going to this webpage and copying the code and pasting it anywhere on your webpages. http://www.cashway.com/article_syndication.htm

We update our RSS feed with new articles, tips and strategies 1-2 times a week

All indications show that RSS feeds are on the rise because of their less intrusive nature, relevant targeted content, can be personalized, accessed through a variety of media, no extra data is collected from viewers and the industry and developers on the whole are making strides in increasing add-ins and features, such as ability to track results of its use, and to better integrate it for users and viewers alike.

So for 24/7 fresh content for your web pages and better search engine recognition you should be looking at using RSS feeds in the very near future.

Ed Duvall is webmaster for http://www.cashway.com and http://www.instantnettraffic.com providing internet marketing tools and resources to help you with your online business.

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