What is RSS?

RSS (also known as “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary”) is a format  employed  to publish regularly updated content—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video. The ‘syndication’ in RSS means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website.

RSS provides a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and images of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to scan through the article so that they could decide  if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source.

What are the benefits of RSS?

RSS gives benefits to both readers (users) and web publishers.

1.            It gives you the latest updates.

Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updates site learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.

2.            It saves on surfing time.

Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user’s time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.

3.            It gives the power of subscription to the user.

Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.

4.            It lessens the clutter in your inbox.

Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.

5.            It is spam free.

Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.

6.            Unsubscribing is hassle-free.

Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user would be asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.

7.            It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool.

Users who subscribe or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.

What are the drawbacks of RSS?

The disadvantages of RSS use are brought about by its being relatively new technology and some user-preference concerns.

1.            Some users prefer receiving email updates over an RSS feed.

2.            Graphics and photos do not appear in all RSS feeds.

For conciseness and ease of publication, RSS feeds do not display the photos from the original site in announcing the update except for some web-based aggregators

3.            The identity of the source website can be confusing.

Since RSS feeds do not display the actual URL or name of the website, it can sometimes get confusing on what feed a user is actually reading.

4.            Publishers cannot determine how many users are subscribed to their feed and the frequency of their visits. Moreover, they would not know the reasons why users unsubscribe which could be important in improving their advertising.

5.            RSS feeds create higher traffic and demands on the server.

Most readers still prefer the whole update over a brief summary of the entry, thus they still access the site.

6.            Since it is a new technology, many sites still do not support RSS.

How do I start using RSS?

There are two things needed: an RSS feed and an RSS aggregator or reader. The RSS feed comes from an RSS-supported website. There are also websites that provide a list of RSS feeds of different websites. An RSS aggregator is used to read the RSS feed from the source website. It scans and collects data on latest RSS feeds from the worldwide web.

An aggregator comes in two forms: a downloadable program also known as desktop aggregator and an online or web-based aggregator. Downloadable aggregators may require payment before they can be acquired, while internet-based aggregators are usually free of charge. All you need to do is to register an account then you are ready to use their services. Both versions allow you to customize or choose which RSS feeds to enter. Paid aggregators are usually chosen by more experienced users and they usually allow more freedom in customizing feeds.

1.            Choose an RSS aggregator to use. For beginners, web-based aggregators are recommended since they are usually user-friendly

2.            Scan the homepage of your target website for the RSS or XML button. It contains the RSS code you need to enter in the aggregator. Copy this code.

3.            Paste the code (which contains the URL of the website) in your aggregator. There is a space provided for pasting the code.

After you have done these three easy steps, you can start reading the RSS feeds coming from the website. New postings appear as they are published real time at the source website.

I guess you may have realized its been quite a while since I updated my blog.it was a deliberate risk I took purposely to prioritize the internet marketing tools I employ . I have been utilizing article submission in my online business for sometime now and I am very familiar with its successes but sometimes one cannot be sure which marketing tool is the most effective. I  occassionally dare to try out exercises just to be utterly convinced and with this one I must confess I was totally elated at the end.

It is an open secret that the search engines are very unfriendly to sites which are not frequently updated -any hard earned rating would appear to plummet after a while.But from studies  it has been realized that un-updated sites can still enjoy huge traffic with backilnks.

In my case I decided to submit just a few articles with backlinks in my author resource to a significantly reduced  number of article directories with ratings I randomly chose just to observe its influence on my ranking. I had decided  to just try it for a couple of weeks  whilst working on my other  several money making sites.

To my astonishment I observed my rankings were improving  considerably and that even gave me the impetus to linger on with the trial. Considering the number of articles submitted and recipient directories the performance of this technique has proved to be exceptionally impressive and has actually jumped to the top most marketing tool I have decided to employ.

Article submission by all standards is a ‘MUST EMPLOY’ marketing technique for every aspiring internet marketer but therein lies a catch,the content must be UNIQUE and ORIGINAL.

You must not do without article submission.Submit your articles to several article directories, let your voice be heard and be respected as an authority. You can get one of the most sought after ‘article submitter softwares ‘  on the web at onlinebizbay at a heavily discounted price.

Article Submitter is EVERYTHING you need to start driving insane traffic to your web site .

Before I delve into the issue of building competitive websites let me touch on a subject of concern which has made affiliate marketing so attractive.

There is the myth that affiliate marketing is a get rich quick scheme and that one can become rich overnight. If you entertain such a belief I am sorry you might be disappointed .There may be some who are fortunate to make it big in the shortest possible time but that is just a handful. Majority don’t find success with affiliate marketing and those who do so labour for it.

Affiliate marketing demands hard work, patience and perseverance. Don’t get me wrong, affiliate can be tremendously rewarding for anyone but trust me ,it demands time investment ,knowing the right products and the right strategies, without these your efforts may be fruitless.

Now back to business.

If you want to go into affiliate marketing you should consider owning a website, not just any website but a professionally looking one as first impression always counts. If you don’t know how to develop one and you don’t have time on your hands, it would be better to outsource it but before you consider that it would be prudent to check on the various page generation tools and quick launch sites available on the internet. They make website development very easy even for the technologically challenged.

How do you go about building an affiliate website that would stand out from the crowd?

First you must have already decided on the theme of your website, the products or services you will be promoting - this would give you a fair idea of the layout of your web pages

The next is to choose a domain name and webhost. The right choice of a domain is critical to your success. The domain should have keywords which are consistent with your niche as it contributes significantly to drawing visitors to your website.

For hosting, do a little research on the quality of service, support system and the uptime guarantees. There are many webhosts claiming optimum service, Check client reviews for unbiased assessment before purchasing.

Now that you have your domain name and host, you can start creating pages. It is very useful to hop around the various affiliate websites and study the designs and features that attract you as a visitor. Learn and incorporate them into your site - copying ideas is no sin, as the adage says ‘no man is an island’.

If you are not well versed with designing, you can readily purchase already made templates and do some tweaking but I would advise that you put a little effort into learning basic html and web design. It would give you confident control of affairs on your website. Affiliate marketing is a long term venture and you need a good grasp of basic web technology in order to maximize profits.

The key to drawing visitors to your site is quality content .It is a component you must pay serious attention to, in fact in my opinion it should be top priority second to the appearance of your website. The reason why people come to your website is content and if they don’t find it, they would definately go somewhere else.

Write interesting articles concerning your niche. Let visitors acknowledge your expertise, an attribute which would cultivate trust in you. If you already have your affiliate programs insert the links in the articles but with caution. Loading your articles with so many affiliate links would betray you as attempting to exploit your reader. Be circumspect and focus on providing valuable information pointing to vendor sites where necessary. Remember that poor content means low readership, no sales and ultimately no commissions.

Write product reviews on the products you are endorsing. the best way to that is to have a first hand experience with the product itself. It would place you in a better position to provide additional information of value to would be buyers.

Don’t place too many banners on your website. It can be very distracting and may eventually compel the visitor to skip to another site for more interesting stuff. Moreover, banners are not the means of advertising.

 So in synopsis,owning a website as an affiliate is strongly recommended but what matters most is how you build it. The quality of your website makes the difference.

To your success

Bizinspirer

The web has become the number source of information  and the rate at which websites spring up these days is unbelievable. If you know how to surf the internet then you can own a website .

The Internet is home to various artists, web artists, and designers both professional and amateur. It can afford to provide individuals with opportunities to freely explore their artistic capabilities and publish content to a borderless audience.

However, unluckily, alongside this freedom of expression afforded to everyone is the capacity to offend sensibilities. Some website provide great utility and aesthetic pleasure—others are bound to get annoying.

There are ways and means in order to avoid getting annoying, and its best to start by knowing when web design of a website does get annoying.

Using colors that just do not work

Colors in good and sensible does are a good means in order to attract attention and communicate ideas and emotions to an audience. They can help add interest to a dull site full of text, and even introduce and maintain a certain mood (as in scary websites using black as a background).

However, there is a fine line between too much and just about right. What gets annoying when it comes to colors is when readability is compromised, and combinations are too loud for comfort. When readability is compromised, it can pose great discomfort to the site’s visitors when they try to decipher the text that they want to have access to. Using too many colors and colors that do not complement each other tend to make the website look goofy and awkward, and can make the website lose whatever credibility it can possibly gain.

Too many clicks to get to the end of the road

At the end of the day, people who visit websites do so in order to access information and content in a website. Some websites tend to re-route visitors through too many clicks before they get to the content they want to get to assuming that the content is indeed somewhere in the multiple pages they are made to access. Obviously, that gets annoying. Rule of thumb says that a maximum of three clicks (but preferably less) should be enough in order for someone surfing a site to get to the information they want to get to.

Excessive graphics that take too long to load

Graphics and pictures, when relevant and are the primary content meant for the website, are a welcome part of a website. However, when they just serve the purpose of aesthetic enhancement, graphics and pictures that take too long to load—and inevitably, slow the process of accessing primary content—become a major reason for discontent and displeasure among visitors.

It is also helpful to note that not all visitors of the website are equipped with optimal download or Internet surfing speeds; excessive graphics that are too large and thus, take too long to load are not only unwelcome but also a great inconvenience to a great number of people.

Navigation that’s over-the-top and difficult to follow

Overcomplicating the navigation of the website can greatly hamper the efficacy of the website to communicate its content, and can hurt the accessibility of many pages to its visitors. At any point during their visit to a site, it is important to assure that the visitors have some way in order to trace back their steps and return to content they previously accessed, as well as carry on with accessing other content.

For simplicity’s sake, many websites solve this problem by having a constant button present on all pages for visitors to return to their main menu page, or their cover page.

Fonts that simply do not work

Depending on the browser and fonts installed by the users on their computers, extremely decorative and highly uncommon fonts may not be displayed the way the web designer intended them to appear—and may oftentimes even compromise the readability of the text per se.

In order to avoid this from happening, many web designers opt to stay within the bounds of major font families (Helvetica, verdana, and the like). That way, they are assured that most (if not all) of their visitors will be viewing the site as designed, and thus have greater control of the way the page will be displayed in the end.

There is never a ‘perfect’ template for design as it is open to the subjectivity and artistic limitations of designers. However, understanding the behavior of site visitors can only help make shape design innovation and utility move towards greater heights.

To your success

bizinspirer

1.Develop an interesting title for your topic. Many people will read it.

2.Make sure that you write original content on forums.

 3.Employ auto submission services or software to submit your articles to hundreds of article directories.

4.Download and activate “All-in-one SEO plugin”. This will give your blog some SEO advantages.

5.Download “Sitemap plugin” and activate it.

6.Turn  your blog title into the keywords you want to rank for.

7.Include keywords you want to rank in your blog’s tagline.

8.Publish  a new blog post daily.

9.Submit your blog to blog directories

10.Add more websites to the ‘Ping’ list (Note that this is available only in Wordpress blog admin area).

11.If you are not using wordpress blog, use AutoPinger.com to ‘Ping’ everytime you write a new post.

12.Create valuable and informational videos and upload them on YouTube.com.

13.Upload to many other video directories with TubeMogul.com too.

14.Develop contents that add value.

15.Create a topic for your blog on which you are the first one to talk about. You become the original source of the information and you will be recommended when they talk about the topic you started.

16.Give valuable comments on popular blogs that are related to your blog.

17.If you don’t know any popular blogs, you can do a  search  on Technorati.com

18.Be the first to give comments. The blog readers and owner will notice you and click on the link to your blog.

19.Give comments that stand out.

20.Search for forums which is discussing the same topic as your blog. Join the conversation and remember to put a link at your signature.

To generate the most outstanding results in web traffic,sales or revenue online one needs to fully understand and utilize the principles of viral marketing.

Viral marketing has definitely gained its popularity over the global network. More and more businesses are adopting this marketing strategy to gain their fair share in the market. 

 Viral marketing has the power of reaching thousands, even millions, of people in such a short time and with little effort from the one who initiates it.

Elements of Viral Marketing

There are at least six elements or basic principles of viral marketing you should gain hold of. A viral marketing technique need not have all of these, but the more principles it follows, the more powerful the strategy will be.

1. Give away products or services. This is the first and most basic principle of viral marketing. When a person hears the word “free,” it elicits the interest in him and will avail of that free product or service, for sure. Having cheap or inexpensive products may also do the trick, but “free” will give much faster results. 

Patience is important in viral marketing. Giving away products for free may not earn profit today but if the business gets to develop customer base by giving something for free, it will soon generate income for them.

2. Easy transfer to others. The medium used to carry the marketing message to other people should relatively be easy. Viral marketing has been powerful over the internet because of the ease of communication the technology offers. Ebooks,Email, web sites, software downloads are just some examples that can be used in viral marketing.

3. Scalability from small to very large. When viral marketing is used as a marketing style, it is best that the business is prepared for rapid growth. In cases of increasing web traffic thru viral advertising, the web owner should make sure that the host server is prepared enough to handle the expected increase in traffic within a short period of time. 

This should not be taken for granted; else, it will defeat the purpose of doing viral marketing. Once people notice that the site takes a long time to load, they will just leave and forget about it. That means an automatic loss of potential customers.

4. Exploit motivation and behaviors. A marketing strategy that builds on motivation and behaviors of people for its transmission is a definite plus. People love to be popular. This motivation will drive them to communicate to more and more people to be known.

5. Utilize existing networks. According to social scientists, an average person has about 8 to 12 members in their close network of family, friends and colleagues. Moreover, internet gives way to creating a bigger network circle. Learning to use these existing networks in viral marketing will yield better results.

6. Take advantage of other’s resources. Viral marketing need not consume all your resources away. Using other web sites in posting your articles, for example, will get them read by a large number of people without the need of creating your own web page. 

It is best to learn these basic elements or principles of viral marketing first before actually doing it. Being to aggressive without doing your homework may just lead to damage instead of success. Try to adopt those that may be applicable to your product. Use all of the principles, if possible, for a more successful output.

If you have a business online and you are eager to reach a very wide audience then you need to resonate your name on the web.You need to capture the market with one of  the most powerful tools - viral marketing  ( word of mouth )– but there must be a concrete reason for clients to spread your word.

When you purchased an item or availed of a service of a certain establishment and are satisfied with what you got, don’t you recommend that to a friend? And when you give your recommendation, doesn’t your friend buy or avail of it as well? 

More often than not, we express our satisfaction with some product or service by telling our friends and relatives about our experience. Some of them will actually try the same product or service that we recommended. Essentially, we have just successfully advertised the product through word-of-mouth without the establishment having to spend a penny on it.

That is the idea behind viral marketing.

Viral marketing is an advertising strategy that entices people to pass on a marketing message to their relatives and friends. It is called as such because of its similarity to an epidemic that easily spreads out, with an exponential growth, once an individual gets “infected.”

How did this marketing phenomenon start?

The concept of viral marketing, which is passing along a message, has been around for a long time now, even for centuries. There was just no specific name for it until 1997 when Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, came up with the term “viral marketing” to describe Hotmail’s marketing practice then.

Hotmail’s practice was to append an advertisement of itself on each message that is sent using their service. When a recipient gets interested and clicks on the ad, it will lead to Hotmail’s website for him to signup. This will go on and on, and the growth is similar to an exponential curve.

Types of Viral Marketing

There are different ways to apply viral marketing strategy.

- Pass-along. This is the most common type of viral marketing. Web sites that ask their users to tell-a-friend about their products and services is an example of pass-along messaging. However, there is a risk of the message being labeled as “spam” by email providers. Thus, it is important that the “from” and “subject” lines do not contain any word that may be tagged as spam.

- Incentivised viral. This is a marketing technique used by companies in which users are offered rewards when they refer somebody to the company. This becomes more effective when the referred person needs to take action for the reward to be given.

- Undercover. The most difficult viral to spot, undercover marketing sends a viral message that is disguised as just an unusual page or piece of news without obvious link citations.

- Edgy gossip or buzz marketing. This type is most common in the entertainment world. A good example is the spread of different controversies, like getting married or divorced, involving the stars of a movie that is yet to be released. This is like a word-of-mouth advertising for the movie.

Methods of Transmission

Spreading the viral message can be done in different ways.

- Email. This is the most common type, when people forwards messages such as inspirational messages, jokes, funny clips and pictures that advertises a certain product or service.

- Instant Messaging. People who receive links from friends through instant messaging servers, like Yahoo or MSN, are more likely to check it out because of the notion of urgency of the sender.

- Web sites. Most of the articles now published online have a link that says “Send to a friend.” This is one way to make the article reach a good number of people by just posting it in one site.

- Word of mouth. Of course, this is the traditional way of passing on a message to another person; and most of the time, the most reliable method too.

Though there are several ways on how to do this kind of advertising, there are also barriers to it. One was already mentioned, which is the risk of the message being labeled as “spam.” Since a lot of companies now are using this method and promoting their products through email, email providers proactively created some sort of filter in their system to separate potential spam emails from the more trusted ones.

Other barriers can be the size and format of the viral message. If the content is a video clip, its reach may be limited because of size limitations of most of the email providers. Media format is also one thing to consider because not all recipients of the message may have the right application to open the file.

But despite of these constraints, businesses are already getting into this style of marketing. Indeed, this technique helps in dramatically increasing revenues by reaching a huge number of the target market without having to spend a big chunk of money for advertisements. Viral marketing will definitely go a long way, especially in the World Wide Web.