As you will have noticed on business blogs and websites, there are often invitations to subscribe to them through their RSS feed. But perhaps you have no idea how to do that?
In fact most business people I meet at my workshops on social media marketing do not understand how to subscribe to RSS feeds.
In summary RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". Think of it this way - if you subscribe to a magazine, you don't need to visit the newsagent to pick up your copy each week - they deliver it to your door.
With RSS, by subscribing to a blog or a website, you will receive updates automatically so you do not have to remember to keep going back to the site to check when they have new content added to the site.
There are a number of different free tools you can use to keep you updated and these are called feed readers - I personally use Bloglines.
But what I have come to realise is that when I am under pressure, the one thing that will slip off my daily activity list is checking for new updates from blogs I subscribe to - in fact it's so long since I checked the feeds in my Bloglines account there must be thousands of potentially high impact articles I have missed.
What I am more likely to do is check emails that fall into my email in-box.
So if I see a great blog that I want to follow I always look to subscribe by email update - now I know some techies will say I am "old fashioned" - but hey that's my preference and i don't spend all day every day by at my computer!
But what do you do if you come across a blog that does not offer email subscriptions?
Well that's when I use Feedblitz, as they have a really cool feature that allows you to enter the URL of the website or blog and get emal updates or update to Skype, Twitter and a host of other ways.
So the next time you want to come across a blog or a website and they do not have an email subscription option and you'd like to have updates straight into your email every time they add content, try out Feedblitz.
Bonus Business Blog Consulting Tips
If you are authoring a business blog, in your design and management of your own feeds:
- Make sure that you offer subscriptions to your blog through feeds AND by email - remember most people do not know what RSS means and what the benefit is to them.
But saying on your business blog,
"receive updates of our articles by entering your email address here"
is very easy to understand and if you are writing great content, you will increase the liklihood of someone subscribing to your business blog.
- Make it easy for people to find the link on your page to subscribe to your RSS fees - top right of your business blog is ideal.
- When you or your webmaster create your feed for your own business blog or webiste, for example using a tool such as Feedburner, do consider offering people access to the full version of your article/blog post.
Many people think that if they only offer an extract it will drive traffic to their blog. To do this you really must be compelling in your article headline and the first couple of sentances to ensure people know the value they will get in the rest of the article.
In my experience, when we get pushed for time, we often will not take that click through to the full blog post or article even if the author is extraordinary in their content. Make it easy for people to access your content.
Remember your goal in your business blog is to add valuable content to help you build your reputation as a THE person to know and do business with in your field so that people reading your business blog will want to connect with you when they are looking for services you offer.
What other tips do you have that make it easy for you to subscribe and read to the business blogs you follow?
Tags: business blog, business blog consulting, social media marketing
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