RSS Directory Submission: The Key to Blog Promotion

According to Technorati, there are over 15 million blogs as of July 2005. And during July, an average of 80,000 new blogs were created each day. If you own a blog, how are you going to promote it in order to stay ahead of the competition?

Fortunately, there is a simple, yet very effective method: RSS directory submission. Submitting your RSS newsfeed to specialized news directories benefits your site in several ways.

RSS directory submission increases your readership. When a person is looking for newsfeeds to add to their RSS reader, it is highly likely they will visit an RSS directory to find newsfeeds on their subject of interest. I recently visited a directory looking for personal business blogs. I subscribed to several, and now read them via RSS on a regular basis. Someone else may have an excellent business blog, but since they weren't listed in the directory, I was unable to discover their site.

RSS directory submission enables your content to be duplicated and linked to from other sites. One of the key benefits of syndicating content through RSS is that it increases your reach. You can publish an article, then have excerpts of that article placed on hundreds of other websites - with links back to the original on your site. Many webmasters want to have fresh content for their visitors, and embedding an RSS newsfeed is the easiest way to do that. You'll want to make sure that you are listed in RSS directories when a webmaster visits looking for website content - or your competitors may get the free promotion!

RSS directory submission provides immediate link popularity. RSS directories are similar to other web directories - you get a free, one-way link back to your site when you are listed. Think about this. Most RSS directories carry a pagerank (PR) of 5 or higher. When you multiply that over 50 RSS directories, that is a lot of links back to your site - meaning increased search engine rank and more visitors.

There are several ways you can submit your RSS newsfeed to directories. The first, obviously, is by hand. You can get a list of the directories (http://www.rss-software.net/rss-directories.php), then go to each website and add your feed manually. Since there are many RSS directories, this can take quite a while. To save the webmaster time, two ways of automated directory submission exist.

The first one is RSS Submit (http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html), a program that automates the directory submission process. All you have to do is open the software, enter the URL for your feed, and RSS Submit will instantly send the feed information to approximately 40 directories. You can also manually submit your site to another 25 directories using RSS Submit's auto-fill function.

The second method is appropriately named: RSS Directory Submission Service (http://www.rssdirectorysubmission.com). This service is similar to RSS Submit - you give them your feed URL, and they submit it to over 50 directories. The difference between the two is price: while RSS Submit costs $44.95 for a personal, non-commercial license. RSS Directory Submission Service charges $8.95 per feed submission. And since sites usually only have one feed, the RSS Directory Submission Service is more economical for most RSS publishers.

Regardless of the RSS directory submission method you choose, make sure to do it! You will find the effort small compared to the benefits you receive.

Josiah Mackenzie is a entrepreneur who shares business tips and advice through his website: http://www.josiahmackenzie.com.

His latest project is an RSS/Blog Directory: http://www.rss-blog-directory.com

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Blogging/RSS Information:

Related Articles

The Key To Marketing With Blogs
I've spent months answering questions from marketers about blogs and blogging and how they fit into the marketing mix. Still, 99% don't understand the power of blogging.
Content Syndication Through RSS Feeds
Delivering regularly updated content to website visitors is easier through RSS resources.RSS, also known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, has been used for years by online visitors.
Writing Quality Blogs
Writing?Blogs?Blogs are on-line journals where people express themselves through writing. Writing?Writing is the process where one puts down words of a language on a format that others can read.
The 6 Top Reasons Marketers Should Blog
If there is a downside to blogging, I have yet to find it. The more you learn about blogging, the more there is to like.
Blogs and RSS - Why Do I Need This Stuff?
If you've been under a rock for the last year or so it'spossible you might not have heard about blogs and RSS feeds.If you're like most of us, you've heard the buzz but mightnot've known what to make of it or what to do with it.
Strategies to Make Your Blog More Interesting
Putting up your business blog is an advantageous way of establishing your presence on web. It's no longer just about putting plain texts up on your blog.
Blogging Policies, Does Your Business Need One?
Weblogs or Blogs as they are more commonly referred to, have become extremely popular in the last several years. So popular in fact that many large businesses are letting some employees post Blogs on their corporate websites.
Marketing With Blogs - Part 3
In part 1 and part 2 of this article series on marketing with blogs, I discussed the reasons why blogs are excellent tools for marketing, and provided some tips on using your blog to sell your products and services online.This article continues with more tips on using your blog to brand yourself and boost your reputation online.
How Blogs Can Be An Excellent Promotional Tool
Blogs as an online promotional strategy if done right could save you huge dollars in reaching out to people. This is also a medium where you need have absolutely no dependence whatsoever on any professional help and you can do everything yourself.
Business Blogs and Their Benefits
Blog is a medium for self-expression on web. Blogs are in the form of few paragraph entries.
Why are you abusing RSS
When you are involved in RSS everyday you get to see the fantastic opportunities RSS can bring to the web and how it can contribute to bettering the browsers experience and the webmasters bottom line. Unfortunately there is a dark side of RSS use.
Is Your Site Ready For The Coming RSS Revolution?
Recently, there have been many developments in theRSS arena. Changes that will make RSS a major force on the web and a dominant contributing factorto your computing experience.
Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System?
By now, most bloggers have heard the announcement that the Big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN - have united in support of a new tag that will supposedly combat comment spam. The new tag is a nofollow attribute that can be added to links.
Google Does RSS
Has Google finally embraced RSS with their new XML powered Sitemaps program? Well, sort of, but it seems more like a hug than a strong impassioned embrace!It does use XML technology which allows for the crawling and updating of your site's web pages. You can even include your entire web site (all urls) with this indexing program.
Improving Your Customer Relationship Management by Blogging
Before I address the following questions:* What is a blog? and* What can a blog do for my business?let me pose a few "What if . .
RSS is a Life Raft, Saving Us from a Sea of Useless Information
One of the main problems with the Internet these days is the fact that there is so much information out there; it can be quite hard to find the particular knowledge that you're looking for. It can often feel like you're surfing waves of thick chocolate fudge sauce and your honeycomb board has a crack that's getting wider by the second.
To Blog or Not to Blog: Are Blogs Becoming More Popular than Forums, Newsletters and E-zines?
Blogging is hot, and seems to be becoming hotter each month. Although blogging originally was dismissed, by many successful publishers and other online "gurus", the truth is that now, a few years after the "blogging trend" began, there are actually more blogs and more bloggers online than ever before.
RSS & How to Use It -- Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of the article that aims to give you just enough information to help you understand RSS and start using it. Part 1 gave you simple instructions on how to read and subscribe to an RSS site feed, part 2 will give you simple instructions on how to publish your own.
Blogs and Networking
In the middle 1990's everyone started talking about needing a website. Now, the new "must have" is a web log or blog.
Blog and Ping: The Basics!
The buzz words on the internet at the moment are Blogging and Pinging and according to the internet guru's we should all be looking at these as the must have system to be attracting visitors to our site and consequentially making revenue.At first glance you may be forgiven for thinking that this is a new comedic duo just bursting on the entertainment scene, but seriously what is Blogging and Pinging and how will it help us to become a viable internet site owner and if indeed an internet marketer, make a serious income online.