May 14, 2007 20:36
Category: Blogging
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I'm going to write about instant web traffic through RSS feed one of these days - I've been telling myself this for a while.
The need arose when some of my clients coincidentally inquired if and how there could be 'surge' of web traffic as soon as their sites go live. For good measure, nearly all said they heard RSS feed is the key to unlock the gate to torrent of traffic.
Admittedly, instant web traffic is something we all yearn for. It's every website owner's dream coming true. The moot point is does it really happen? Is it something that is achievable by small website owners?
The answer to both is a resounding 'yes'. There's no hanky-panky here, no suggestions of doing improbable things that are frowned upon by search engines, or are firmly beyond many small website debutants. Instant web traffic, some within just an hour of publishing your story, is indeed possible.
Coming to think of it as I write this piece, I realized that I'm already getting free instant web traffic for my blogs, but I haven't felt it that way. Indeed there can be at least 2 ways to generate web traffic no sooner your content is live on Internet, one of which is to create RSS feed and propagate it.
In this article I'm going to share how RSS feed can fetch you instant web traffic, and also touch upon how through optimum use RSS retains visitors. The tips are not something not already widely known among long-time web practitioners.
This series is in fact aimed at small website owners for whom some immediate web traffic even if less in number is a big boon.
Having said that let me say there are a couple of issues that I feel are important to understand in order to retain such visitors. About that later in this article.
Web Traffic In Less Than An Hour By Pinging
The innocent-looking RSS feed that by default every blog generates has good uses if handled properly. When you ping your RSS feed after writing a post (RSS for Really Simple Syndication), you're telling blog search engines and directories to take note of your post. How do you ping?
The first step is to incorporate important tags related to your post such as the ones I've at the end of this article for Technorati. Simply mention these tags as per example format given below. Mention as many tags as you think fit for your particular post.
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/your+keyword"
rel="tag">your keyword</a>
What happens is when you ping Technorati your RSS feed, it immediately notes the tags of your latest post that usually goes live almost immediately in Technorati.
Thus when a person searches for blog entries in Technorati and if his search term resembles one of your tags, your post will show up in the search results, thus enabling your blog to earn instant web traffic.
Even if you do not tag your post, it doesn't matter much as Technorati lists entries from 3 sources - blog directories, blog posts and tags. Tags are just a value addition to your blog post.
The best free place to ping your feed is Ping-o-Matic, which in turn pings nearly all major blog search engines and directories including Technorati. You may also consider pinging Google your feed.
Whichever you do - especially if you happen to write on hot current events - rest assured of the possibility of web traffic even before you take a coffee break after pinging your post.
This brings me to discuss how you can make it easy for your visitors to access your posts in the blog.
Let Visitors Easily Access Your Posts
Your RSS feed, the ubiquitous XML file (in all probability 'rss.xml'), is the gateway to higher blog visibility. Offer it to your visitors dressed up with options so that if they wish to keep in touch with your posts, they can do it without much effort.
Earlier the idea was to offer the link to your raw RSS feed (something like http://yoursite.com/rss.xml) hidden behind cute-looking button image, and the visitors would copy the URL and take it to a feed-reader like My Yahoo!, Bloglines, FeedBurner or suchlike.
Now there are more easy painless options like direct feed-reader links, feeds by email, and so on. Read more on this in my article on how to enable feed reading with RSS feed to propagate your blog.
Summing Up
As you can see, RSS feed is a potent weapon in your hands to attract web traffic the instant your post is recorded by the blog search engines and directories.
Let us now take a peek at 3 close-to-ground issues for improving stickiness of your blog, because in the end you'd surely want to have at least some of your instant web traffic to return often to your blog.
First, your blog needs to have a direction to succeed. I have discussed about possible 3 barriers to information business online to survive and grow. Let it not be that your blog looses the way after a promising start.
Second, nothing beats the necessity of contents for your blog. Have you worked on a content development plan? Is there a writing program to build your content? Satisfactory answers to these questions form the backdrop of a blog's long-term success, instant web traffic or not. As a rule of thumb, a website or blog needs to have some 25 to 30 pages of contents to make impression in the minds of visitors.
The third point is a bit dicey. While my experience tells me quality content is a major reason to bring repeat visits, I've seen several blogs with not-so-good content getting large flow of traffic.
Perhaps I've to qualify my concept of content as something that offers value to readers as against just superior quality of writing with less value for viewers. I leave it to readers for their inference (do offer your comments, link at the top).
In the next part of this series, we'll look at how social media optimization can help to bring instant web traffic.
