Why Use Rss Feeds in Blog Posts.
I had an email from a reader the other day:
What is the benefit of me adding an rss feed to my WordPress blog…..how does it work and what do I do?
This is a big question but one that might help quite a few readers so here is a brief overview that will help you get started.
The purpose of RSS feeds is to be able to add fresh content to a site giving fresh content on an ongoing basis without additional work from the webmaster.
IMHO the first thing you need to consider is why you are adding the content.
Do you simply want to freshen up static content on pages that never change?
Do you want to provide a resource for your readers so that you become a kind of news aggregator within your niche?
These are the two basic reasons for having rss on your pages and your response will tend to affect how you implement rss.
I used to add keyword based feeds to my blogs knowing that the content was going to be a bit poor but also knowing that it gave search engines a good reason to visit. It always seemed that humans were bright enough to avoid the rubbish.
Nowadays I try to provide decent quality content for the benefit of real readers. Done well this can also serve to meet the needs of option one, above, but it can be harder to find the feeds you want. I have published a list of sources for keyword based rss feeds, it is a little out of date but is still a good starting point.
These days we have more choices than simply hoisting in rss feeds, we have blog networks such as Article Marketing Automation or Syndicate Kahuna, tools that scrape article directories and other content syndication tools. These latter may well provide a good source of on theme content and are probably worth a good look.
When considering automated feeding, be it rss or other forms you might want to think about whether the content is self contained or is just a snippet of a larger item hosted elsewhere. If you get complete articles are you also hosting somebody else's links and if so is this an issue. Basically, how well does the source and content match with your business objectives.
Of course you need to have a way of adding feeds to your blog, one of my favourites is SmartRss, a WordPress plugin from DevPlug. I like this one because it enables me to easily use several feeds at once and even turn them on or off frm the plugin management page.
I'd strongly recommend using rss feeds to add content to your WordPress blog. If done well rss feeds will add interest for your readers and search engine spiders and save loads of work for you, the webmaster. One final point, I'd not use rss feeds as the sole content source, use them as seasoning for an already wholesome meal.
Filed under Blog Setups, Ideas and Tips, Install WordPress by on Mar 19th, 2009. 
Leave a Comment