We love RSS, and not just because we are nerds who cut our teeth on the internet way back in the day of Blogger and Digg.
What is RSS and why is it cool?
So glad you asked! RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and in practical terms is a very straightforward online file that contains all the key information from a post. It can be used to generate a “feed” that makes information from your site very portable across the web.
Back in the halcyon, pre-social web Internet, many of us tended to personalized RSS “feed readers” which would allow us to create a lovely individualize pastiche of hilarious cat videos and hard-hitting news about politics. Facebook and the rise of many other social networks really changed those dynamics a lot, but that didn’t mean that a simple way to make website data portable went away.
In fact, we recently read on Hot Pod that YouTube will be rolling out an RSS feed service for podcasters, allowing those in that field to aggregate their work on YouTube and YouTube music, which is obviously an important distribution channel.
These days, RSS remains a great way to do a few thing:
- Syndicate web page content into newsletters (which allows you to hit two audiences as once — your lovely newsletter subscribers as well as creating legacy content that will hopefully scoop in some organic search traffic).
- Displaying syndicated content on your website: If you publish a lot of content, like blog posts or case studies, you can use RSS to display a whole set of different feed on one page. Some of our clients who have multiple divisions and lines of business like to do this to put all information in one place.
Why you might consider using RSS:
- Your newsletter workflow could be streamlined: wouldn’t it be nice to press publish on a WordPress post and have it sent out to your audience? We have clients who do this.
- You want to make your pages feel more “dynamic” with more frequently updated content. RSS widgets can hold press releases, new articles and much more.
Want more ways of streamlining your workflow with RSS?
Contact us for more help. We’d love to talk you through it!
