RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news feeds make it easy for you to get news and content updates from your favorite websites, all in one place. When you subscribe to a feed, new articles and updates are automatically sent to a web service or software known as a feed reader or aggregator. Read about how RSS feeds work…

If you run a blog and use a blogging tool, probably the tool generates an RSS feed for you… so, you don’t need to worry about how to write RSS documents.

RSS feed is an XML based file. There are different variations of the RSS format. I recommend RSS 2.0 since it is the most popular and has a lot of features. If you understand how HTML works, you can learn how to build your own RSS 2.0 feed easily just make sure you follow the XML 1.0 specifications published by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

Check the functionality of this file at:
http://pacificdesigners.com/rss/rss.xml

Step 1: XML Declaration
Since RSS 2.0 must validate as XML, the first line in your RSS feed must be the XML declaration.

The first line specifies the document as XML and the document encoding that will be used.
The second line states you are using RSS and which version of RSS you are using. I recommend you copy this into your file as it is.

Step 2: Channel and Feed information:

We open the channel tag, which contains information and content about the feed.
Title, Description and Link are required channel elements.
Title: The name of the channel.
Description: Sentence describing the channel.
Link: URL to the HTML website corresponding to the channel.

We have to insert a atom:link to the feed in the channel section. According to the RSS Advisory Board’s Best Practices Profile, identifying a feed’s URL within the feed makes it more portable, self-contained, and easier to cache.

There are some optional elements used in this file as:
language: The language the channel is written in. This element allows aggregators to group same language sites on a single page.
docs:  URL that points to the documentation for the format used in the RSS file.
image: Image that can be displayed with the channel (GIF, JPG or PNG)
ttl: Time to live. It’s a number of minutes that indicates how long a channel can be cached before refreshing from the source.

Step 3: RSS Items

Next we enumerate over each RSS item. A channel may contain any number of <item>. All elements of an item are optional, but at least one of title or description must be present.

Some optional elements used in this file are:
guid: Guid stands for globally unique identifier. It’s a string that uniquely identifies the item.
pubDate: Its value is a date, indicating when the item was published.

Step 4: Close Channel and RSS tags.

Finally, validate your feed at: FeedValidator.org

 This is a valid RSS feed

To make your RSS feed look pretty, you can add a stylesheet to the feed.

There are two types of stylesheets you could add. first, using XML and the second one using CSS.

I will explain about it in my next blog….

 …Victoria…

Now, you have your blog running with your smiling picture on it … now what? How can you let people know about your blog in the first place? Who is going to read your next blog besides your wonderful friends and family? 

Ok, unless you have a blog that is intended to share only with family members and close friends you have to start to promote and advertise your blog. Here are some tips:

1. Content
Write quality content that people want to read. Use Attractive Titles and use keywords on them. Descriptive headlines are especially important for representing your weblog in search engines and newsfeeds (RSS). Think about the words and phrases someone would use to find your information and use them more than once as you write. Use links to the sources or link yourself to previous articles you have written that way the content look more informative.

Avoid large blocks of text break up your text, using bullets, numbered lists, quotes, paragraph breaks and images.

 2. Blog Frequency
For most weblogs, daily updates are probably best, but weekly or even monthly updates might work as well, depending on your topic. Don’t let months go by without new content. Be sure to keep your blog updated.

The more you update your blog the more often Search Engines will send their spiders to your site to index it. This will mean your new articles could appear in the index within days or even hours rather than weeks. This is a natural benefit of blogging. Feed the spiders!

3. Submit your site to the search engine directories
Get your blog listed in a directory like dmoz (this is the most important directory), LookSmart and Yahoo. Google gives importance to the websites that are listed in dmoz  and Yahoo directories. If you manage to get your site listed on these directories, soon it will be listed on Google and hundreds of other directories automatically.

Use a description that captures your niche market and topic — the more specific, the better in helping you stand out.

4. Technorati
Technorati is the biggest blog search engine and one of the best traffic providers for bloggers. People find your blogs easily when people search by technorati tags. Technorati will rank your blog based on the number of links from other websites. The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things.
Wordpress automatically communicates with Technorati, and a few other sites.

5. Submit your RSS to MyYahoo
Submitting your RSS feed to MyYahoo seems to help with getting indexed on Yahoo.

6. Add Meta Tags
Meta Tags (The word meta means information about ) contain information that describes your site’s purpose, description, and keywords used within your site. The meta tags are stored in the head section of the html document.

By default, WordPress doesn’t included them, but you can manually include them in the header.php template file.

7. Alt tags
Use alt tags for your images, and be sure that they match what the image shows - this helps Google image search and other image search engines.

8. Exchange Links
Exchange links with your friends and other bloggers. Link to other people blogs using your blogroll and ask them politely to do the same for you. Links (especially from quality sites) helps you being placed better in search engines results.

9. Comments
Leaving relevant comments on other’s people’s blogs will bring curious readers of those comments to your site. This is a common tactic used by bloggers to get a few readers here and there for their blog.

Post a comment with a link. (do NOT just post the link, which is considered spamming for a lot of bloggers). Comment what you like or don’t like about it, just a few sentences. Then you mention that you wrote a similar post, and supply the URL for those who want to check it out.

10. Forums
Other methods to increase yours site’s link popularity is to register and be active on a Forum that allow you to provide signatures.

11.  Permalinks - permanent link

Permalinks are the permanent links (url) that points to a specific blog entry.

Permalinks remains unchanged indefinitely, it is less susceptible to link rot. Most modern weblogging and content-syndication software systems, including Wordpress, Movable Type, LiveJournal and RapidWeaver support such links.

You can beautify your urls with something more meaningable and readable.

12.  Sign your email -Add your blog’s url as part of your signature in your email.

13. Tip - Make your posts conversational, try to involve the reader by writing to them. Ask Questions: Asking questions at the end of posts encourages readers to leave comments.

So - what do you think? Do you know more tips to increased traffic to your blog?

I had to ask!

…Victoria…
www.pacificdesigners.com

RSS = Really Simple Syndication = Rich Site Summary

Not too long ago you would have to check for any updates in a blog or a favorite site.

Here is the old way:

1. Bookmark a website to your browser’s Favorites list.
2. Days later (maybe weeks or months) you check the recent updates of your favorite website or blog.

…NOW…

If a blog or a favorite site is updated it comes to you and it is displayed in one place.

Here is the new way:

1. Add the website’s feed to your feed reader. (Also called an RSS reader, feed reader, aggregator, newsreaders or news aggregator.)
2. This reader monitors your chosen feeds for updates. If an update is detected, the reader shows you what was added or changed in your favorite site.

But how do you do it?

It is very simple.  

First, you need to sign up for a reader.   Here are a few:

www.google.com/reader
www.bloglines.com
www.feedreader.com

Second, you need to set up a connection between the reader and your favorite sites. It is called subscribing.

Now, go to a site that supports RSS. Look for the icon that indicates a link to a RSS file. There are two ways to subscribe. One is to enter the URL of the RSS feed into your reader. The other is to follow a subscribe link from a web page; Every reader has a different way of doing this… so, you have to follow the instructions. Now, new posts from your favorite site will arrive to your reader.

Why should you make a feed available?
Your viewers will thank you because it allows them to see your site updates rather than visit each of their favorite sites individually. For anyone that reads dozens of pages a reader is a necessity. RSS readers are set up to check periodically for new items in the feeds you are subscibed to, commonly once every hour. In other words, the news comes to you, rather than you having to go to the news. This saves a tremendous amount of time.

 Are you ready to save time?

…Victoria…
www.pacificdesigners.com

Here are some blog best practices for any blogger looking for a practical way to improve the usability of their blog. Many of the principles here will apply to websites, as well.

1. Setting up your blog - Get a good domain name
If you are serious about blogging the best practice is to set up your blog as a part of your company domain.
For example, yourdomain.com/blog.

Having your own blog location under your domain allows you to switch blog software easily without having to change your url.

Hosting your own blog gives your site a more professional look and has some search engine marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) advantages.

Also, register your domain name for a lengthy period. A recent Google patent indicates they now look at the length of your domain’s registration to rank it. Why? because many spam sites have short registrations and a longer one indicates that you are building a solid site.

2. Design
Pay important attention to the design of your blog. There is no accounting for taste but keeping the design simple, clean and easy to navigate will fill everybody’s expectation. Keeping it simple and clean will allow Seach Engine robots to index your site a lot faster and more accurately.

Templates are excellent to start with and you can also modify it to add your own look and feel. Make your theme unique by adding your logo, own graphics and colors. It will help you to stand out from all the other blogs and add credibility.

If you are not making decent money with ads I suggest you to remove all ads you have on your blog. Make sure nothing steals attention from your text.

3. Include an about page and add your photo
Explain to the reader who you are and why you have a blog. Your blog reveals your personal views, so introduce yourself to your readers. You enhance your credibility by the simple fact that you’re not trying to hide. People are more likely to deal with somebody that they know more about.
A smiling and friendly picture of a blogger will make people more likely to come to your blog again.

Now, you have your blog running with your smiling picture on it … now what? How can you let people know about your blog in the first place? Who is going to read your next blog besides your wonderful friends and family? (BTW, Thank you guys for your nice comments;-) ) Now, I invite you to read the second part of this blog “Spread your Blog”

…Victoria…
pacificdesigners.com

Welcome to my new blog. I intend to write about the art of making web sites, share my knowledge and experiences in web design with you and maybe just to vent!

Pacific Designers blog
will cover topics such as:
• Optimizing your site to get more traffic
• Web usability
• How to use images to capture your audience
• Should I use a blog instead of a website?
• What makes a website successful
• and much more…

Hope you enjoy it. Personally, I love what I do for a living!

…Victoria…
pacificdesigners.com