One of the best ways to keep users of your website is to have them coming back for more. You can accomplish this by providing RSS feeds. RSS Stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is a coded method of informing website users of new news, activities happening, contests you are running, anything you really want to know. The process of RSS Feeds is relatively easy, when you know how to do it. But for the beginner, it may be a little intimidating to learn how to submit an RSS feed for your website.

One way to submit an RSS feed for your website is to put up a blog or “weB LOG” Blogging software usually contains built in code that will submit your feed to RSS directories every time you make a new post. For some people, however, this can be tricky. Blogging software out of the box can be a little intimidating, and they usually provide very little to no documentation. Hosted blogs like WordPress and Blogger usually contain those built in codes, but customizing your blog to your liking can be difficult.

Another, less used but highly popular, method is to create the RSS Feed yourself. This is done through eXtended Markup Language, or XML. XML is almost like HTML in its design, except for the fact that RSS XML Files contain usually only three or four items. These items are the title, description and link. You can embed multiple items into one XML file, which creates your feed.

An RSS feed is a grouping of items chained together. This is called a “channel” and is referenced by the “channel” and “/channel” tags at the beginning and end, respectively, of your XML file. The last thing you need to do at the top of your file is indicate it is an XML file by using the XML and RSS tags. See your favorite web design book or website on how to do this.

So, you’ve spent all this time creating your XML file, it works, and all is well, now what do you do with it? Well, you need to submit it of course. The best way to submit an RSS Feed is to use one of the multitude of RSS Directories out there. I won’t list any, just google it. Once you’ve found one, submit your XML file like you would a web page, and within minutes, your newly acquired RSS Feed will be screaming across the internet at the speed of light, both to your current users, and also attracting new users at an alarming rate.

The benefits of RSS are great. You can keep your users informed of happenings on your site, you can attract new users, and you can ensure that your news will get out to the world with ease.