Blogging Tutorial & RSS Feeds - What is a Blog?

According to Merriam Webster online dictionary, the word "Blog" was the number one top searched word of 2004 because EVERYONE wants to know what blogs are and how to use them.That definition is: Blog noun [short for Weblog] : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer. Below are over 30 informative articles on blogs, RSS Feeds and how to use them to enhance your business and, if you choose, to use blogs for your online business to increase search engine ranking and traffic to your web site. Good Luck!

Top 10 Blog Writing Tips
© Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman

Most of the "rules" about writing for ezines and newsletters apply to writing posts for your blog, but there are some important differences. Keep these 10 tips in mind and you'll be publishing great blog content that attracts prospects and clients in your niche market.

1. Write with the reader in mind. Remember WIIFM? It's marketing jargon for What's In It For Me? That's what you should be keeping in mind. Your reader will read your post looking for what's in it for them.

2. Make it valuable and worthwhile. Don't waste people's time. If you don't have anything to say, no problem, plenty other people do. So share their articles, do an interview, review a book.

3. Proof-read for typos and glaring grammatical errors. You wouldn't go out of the house with dirty hair or missing a sock, so why would you publish spelling mistakes? Respect your readers by polishing up your stuff.

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Innovative Business Use of RSS TechnologyBuy FeedForAll
Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a new way to broadcast corporate news and structured information. RSS offers a quick, easy corporate communication channel. The RSS contents are published as a feed and the feed's content keep customers, partners and journalists abreast of corporate news and information. The RSS feeds are read using a tool referred to as a news aggregator, or an RSS reader. The aggregator periodically checks to see if the RSS feed has been updated. As the feed is updated, new information will automatically appear in the RSS reader.

While RSS was at one point only considered to be a means to deliver news headlines, RSS has quickly become a powerful medium to disseminate all kinds of information. As traditional marketers are attempting to rein in content delivery, measuring e-mail open rates, click-throughs and conversions, Internet users are fighting to gain control over the content they receive. Savvy marketers and business owners are using RSS as a way to improve corporate communication and increase their external exposure and brand appeal.

What is the enclosure tag? RSS 2.0 is quickly becoming the definitive RSS standard, all because of its support for the enclosure tag. The enclosure tag is an optional field in the RSS 2.0 specification that allows the feed publisher to include a link to a file. The file can be just about anything. Businesses have seized the opportunity, including tutorials, streaming audio lectures, PDF proposals, Power PointŠ?˘ presentations, podcasts of sales meetings, and advertising portfolios among other traditional uses for RSS.

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Why You Need to Blog and use RSS Feeds
Copyright © 2005 Craig Desorcy Effective-Info http://www.effective-info.com/

Blogs and RSS feeds are a sure-fire way to get your website off the dirt roads of cyberspace and onto the Internet superhighway! Think about it. Has your web traffic been slow and bumpy? Then maybe it?s time to try a new route.

Let?s imagine for a minute the local department store you shop in. What would you think if the displays never changed? Every time you entered you saw the same signs advertising the same products. Boring, right? After a while you wouldn?t even pay attention to them. Websites are no different. RSS feeds and blogs are interesting ways to spruce them up a bit - to keep things interesting and changing. Believe me, interest is a key element in drawing people back time and time again.