Taking the Easier Route to Generating RSS Subscribers

RSS is certainly still far from being user-friendly, which is especially evident once you try and left-click on an RSS subscribe button. In most cases your browser will simply display the XML code of the RSS feed ... which does not go far in making internet users comftorable with RSS. Heck, if you didn't know what RSS was and clicked on an RSS button only to get a page full of code you don't understand, would that aid in turning you in to an RSS user? Probably no. And much worse, you'd probably never consider clicking on one of those buttons again, at least not any time soon. Consequently, if as a marketer you're trying to generate RSS subscribers, simply using an RSS subscribe button is the worst way to go for you and for the RSS industry as a whole as well. So, what alternatives are there? a] CREATE AN RSS PRESENTATION PAGE If you're trying to generate RSS subscribers from your site and are targeting audiences that might not be farmiliar with RSS, you need at least a basic presentation of what RSS is on your site, and you need to link to that either directly from the RSS subscribe button or from a location right next to that button, like you can see on the MarketingStudies.net example. On this page you should explain in easy-to-understand terms what RSS is, how your visitors can use it and how they'll benefit, and then provide links to some RSS readers and again links to your RSS feeds. This page will be instrumental in telling your visitors about RSS and helping them subscribe to your feeds. And of course, the feeds themselves and the RSS presentation page should be promoted in prominent locations on your website, especially directly below your e-mail e-zine subscription box and, if you're publishing topic oriented feeds, next to their respective topics on the site, just as Lockergnome.com is doing. B] TRANSFORM AN RSS FEED IN TO XHTML Having a link to an RSS presentation page right next to your RSS subscribe button does aid visitors in learning about RSS and helps them to subscribe, but it still doesn't solve the problem of a user actually clicking on an RSS feed button. That will still result in the visitor getting heaps of code he really won't know what to do with. Going one step further, you can use XSL Transformations to make sure that the feed can in fact also be displayed in a browser (without making it useless for an RSS reader as well) ... and that with some additional information and instructions, such as a brief overview of RSS and a quick explanation on how the user can subscribe to this feed via an RSS reader. I don't want to get technical here, so to see what I mean simply click on this link (via FeedBurner): http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/wlg/7821) just wrote a simple piece of code you can use instead of the typical link to your RSS feed behind the RSS feed subscription button, which will, after you click on the link, display a simple message saying that in order to subscribe to the feed you need to copy and paste this URL in your your RSS reader. This certainly doesn't go very far in making RSS more user-friendly, as the notification really can't be used to explain what RSS is and why your visitors should use it, but it at least saves the visitor from getting the XML code in his browser and hating RSS before he or she even find out what it is. The simple code to do so is And don't forget to replace the [ and ] characters with . f] STRONG COPY No matter how many times we write this, it still needs repeating. The best way to get your visitors to subscribe is to entice them to do so with strong copy that provides clear and valuable benefits, explaining to the visitor exactly why he needs to subscribe to exactly your RSS feed. Rok Hrastnik is acknowledged as one of the top worldwide experts on RSS marketing. Get the easy way to mastering RSS marketing today. Click here now to get all the details on how to make RSS marketing work for you and help you increase your online profits: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/?src=sa31