One of the advantages touted by blog proponents is the ability to use your blog (and/or other blogs) to automatically add fresh content to your site. Search engines like regularly updated content, and will get in the habit of dropping in to see whats new!
Laptop Battery However, as you will have quickly discovered if you have had a go at this already, getting the content flowing is somewhat tricky. Everybodys talking about it... but nobody's saying hey, you can do it this way!
There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people. RSS feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest information on products or blogs in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the website you have taken the feed from.
Thinkpad It depends a little on how your site is constructed. For normal people (read non-technical types) who are intent on good search engine rankings, you've probably had the good sense to build your site in HTML. That actually makes it a litle bit harder! :-) It just seems that all the web-geeks out there use PHP or similar arcane web construction processes, and of course they make this stuff look easy. However, us normal people can be left sucking air a bit...
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) based format that lets you subscribe to websites and blogs. Subscribing to an RSS feed lets you see updated information quickly and easily in a single interface (even from multiple sources). RSS enables you see what's new on your favorite sites without having to visit them all individually. The most common tool users will need to subscribe to a RSS feed will either be a news reader or aggregator. alone programs.
Microsoft
RSS to HTML - to use JavaScript or not?
There are quite a few JavaScript RSS to HTML applications available - some free, some at modest cost. My advice? Do not go near them! The problem with JavaScript here, as in any other area, is that the search engines will simply skip right on by that section of your page. Yep, that is right - a complete waste of time if you are trying to deliver fresh content that a search engine spider will find and index.
This section is pure and simple. Add content to your site ! either do it yourself or get someone else to write it for you, either way ADD CONTENT ! Look into RSS feeds, PR, Q and A sections and blogs 10. 4little1s.com notes on getting traffic Partner up with other sites, look at IP numbers, consider local searches (Geo location nice word!) use a tool called IP2LOCATION.COM to work out where traffic is coming from.,
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RSS to HTML - use a hybrid PHP solution?
Nothing worth having comes easy... but hey, you know that already! Until someone comes up with a better/easier solution, you are going to have to get your hands dirty with code! What I found, after a day of searching down dead-ends, was a nifty little application called CaRP. Its a PHP-based tool, there is a free version, and it actually works! An example is midway down the page at
The SEO Guys Site where I've extracted and displayed a blog & directory feed from my own site, plus a third feed from an external site.
Using the RSS reader function in your browser, or in an RSS reader on your computer's desktop, you can see all our News Blog updates as they happen. Download RSS feed Click this icon to subscribe to the Neilson News Blog RSS Feed... What on earth is RSS If you need to find an RSS reader to use for our News Blog feed, or for news, weather or other information, then here are some suggestions from Download.com. Or try Google Reader.
Laptop Computer Achieving this took an hour or so - uploading CaRP, installing a MySQL database for it, running the configuration file, and tweaking settings to display the feed as required. A small block of PHP code must be installed in the HTML page where you wish to display the feed. Execution of PHP scripts within an HTML page has a couple of requirements.
Basically, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, mail using Outlook, based service like Hotmail.
Desktop Computer - First, your Hosts server must be configured to allow this.
- Second, you will have to edit (or create) the .htaccess file in your site's root directory and add a small block of code that allows script processing for your site. This can be configured as site-wide, or for a single page only.
Notebooks CaRP allows multiple ways of customising the way feeds are displayed. For a start, you can set global formatting to apply to all feeds from within the config file. E.g. you might want to set a default font size on channel titles, and a different size on text within items. You might also want to change the total number of items displayed per listing, and set all links to open in a new window. (Recommended!)
Lenovo Then, within the individual HTML page where you specify the feeds to be displayed, you can add different formatting attributes to different feeds. In the example above, all site feeds have items displayed as a bulleted list.
Hard Drive For a closer look at the PHP code that achieves the current display, details of .htaccess changes, and for the download location of CaRP etc, go to the following page - RSS to HTML via CaRP
Travelstar The CaRP application has good documentation, which you will probably have to read... yes, when all else fails, read the instructions!
Gateway Good luck!
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Software Ben Kemp has 20 years of experience in the IT industry, including 12 years as a free-lance IT consultant. He is one of NZ's longest serving search engine optimisation practitioners, with clients throughout Australasia. He offers free SEO hints, plus blog & web design tips via his Blog.
The SEO Guy (nz)
Email: bjk@TheSeoGuy.co.nz
Web: http://www.comauth.co.nz
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