Blog Feeds Part 2

November 1st 2008 FREE SEO Blog

In our last blog we talked very briefly about what a blog feed was. In this installment we are going to go in-depth into what a blog feed is and how it works. We will even give you an example of one. At the end of the blog we will even supply you with the coding to make it work.

First things first

To better illustrate the importance of a blog feed, let's take a look at this illustration. A blog by itself is really nothing more than a stack of magazines in your living room. Everytime someone comes over to your house they have a chance to read those magazines. A blog feed on the other hand is alot like owning and distributing the magazines in the first place. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that having a set of magazines on counters and bookshelves across the nation will get read more often than the magazines sitting in just your coffee table.

Setting up a blog feed in essence syndicates your blog of information. It puts it out their just like the magazine guys put out new magazines on store shelves every 2-4 weeks. Only this time you can put out new information as many times a day, week, month as you want.

I get it! How do I do it.

Having the ability to put out your own syndicated product feed or information feed is really a tremendous gift to your business. In times past only those with large amounts of marketing money were able to syndicate any kind of publication to large amounts of people. It took a dedicated staff to write , design and publish the syndicated material. If you outsourced these jobs then forget about it. You are talking very large amounts of money to do the job the right amount of justice.

Even small time black and white publications were time and resource heavy. Now we have the ability for one person to write, design, publish and send out (automatically) a very detailed picture/video filled syndication in a matter of minutes all across the world. Magazines that cost millions of dollars to produce and weeks to get out to patrons don't even have that kind of power.

Okay, so I see the difference. Now what?

If you are a blogger then you are probably using a blogging program to publish your blogs. Most of the blog programs out there already have a syndication feature built in. Tweaking may be an option in your particular case. It is definitely worth checking into. There are so many options out there that I am not even going to try to go into any kind of depth on how to tweak your particular blogging program. What I am going to do today is show you how to setup a complete blog feed from scratch.

Blog Fodder!

The first thing you need to make your syndication work is material. No, I don't mean fabric. You need a few webpages of writing. Generally when starting a blog layout I use the most generic page on my site that is obviously laid out like it came from my site. This helps establish continuity between your site and your blog. It also, in the longrun, helps build your brand.

Next, you need to make a single page that is much like the index of your site but that deals mainly with what your blog is about. This will give your feed readers a central point to land at and see an index of your blogs. Think of it as a reference point. If you think you will have alot of blog pages it might also be a good idea to start an index possibly by the month. Whatever method you choose make sure it is something you are comfortable with.

Once you have your blog structure laid out and starting pages done, you need only one main last step. You need to make an rss page. The rss page is usually just a text file that is formated in xml format. There are alot of great resources out htere about xml and formating an rss file. To make things easy for us here though, I am going to include a sample that you can simply copy and edit for yourself.

The rss file is what feed readers look at to see your pages, blog information and any updates that you make in the future. FYI, feed readers are really what do the hard work for you. They put out updates and keep track of every change you make to your rss file. When they see a change or an update they alert your readers of the new changes.

I didn't want to do this but....

I didn't want to have to break this read into three parts but I am running out of time for today. Tomorrows installment will definitely finish out the feed reader discussion. I will also post the sample rss file so that you can make your own.