What's all this RSS Stuff, Anyhow?
Blogs and RSS Feeds
A good way to draw attention to yourself and your books is to include a "blog" on your website. The term "blog" derives from web log, which originally referred to a regularly updated journal or column published online. (See LiveJournal and The Drudge Report.) The term is now popularly, if not always accurately, applied to any collection of articles and stories, including even collections of photos, videos, and music files. The defining aspect has become the blog's vitality, rather than the nature of its content. Blogs that provide useful information, or articles that are interesting or entertaining, are likely to draw visitors and links to your site. That traffic works like word-of-mouth advertising, and eventually results in your pages winning higher rankings in search results.
"Syndication" is a term that originated in journalism, referring to the simultaneous publishing of proprietary content in a number of newspapers or other periodicals. Syndication is handled by agencies that buy articles, stories, columns, photographs, comic strips, or other features and distribute them for simultaneous publication by subscribing clients. Similar arrangements are found in radio and television broadcasting.
"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way to distribute designated web content to particular subscribers. The subscribers are people who have an interest in your website which is keen enough that they want to be informed about changes and newly added content. RSS is also useful for linking to your blog from other websites. For example, if you register at several social networking sites, it makes sense to host your blog at a single location, preferably your own website. You can then link to your blog from the profiles you set up on all the other sites. This avoids duplication, which might be interpreted as blog spamming, which is also called splogging. It also eliminates any chance that search engines might link to your articles at sites with a higher ranking that your own, your hard work thereby serving to direct traffic to someone else.
If your website is static, containing material that doesn't often change, there would ordinarily be no reason for anyone to be interested in a RSS feed from it. Therefore if you have no intention of becoming a "blogger," you know as much about this subject as you need to know, and there is no reason to continue beyond this point.
The syndicators on the web are called "aggregators." That will be you, but you'll will need some help from Google, or someone else. Blogs can be just blurbs (one-sided commentary), but are at their best when interactive. That means you should permit your readers to respond by entering comments of their own which other readers can also see and respond to. That immediately raises the probability of your blog's being open to spam and abuse. Special blog management software is used to help prevent that, and to permit you to manage your system. A couple of free applications that you can install on your own website are DasBlog and WordPress. If your main interest is blogging, you might be willing to become a blog site manager. Otherwise you can leave all that complication up to someone else. There are lots of sites that host blogs, but only a few who do that as their primary business. The leading free blog hosting provider is Google's Blogger. WordPress also provides free hosting as an alternative to the do-it-yourself approach.
Setting Up Your Blog
Blogger is very easy to use and usually works well. The following assumes that you have an existing website with your own registered domain name, and the usual FTP access to your space on the web server. While you actually manage your blog on Blogger, Blogger can be set up to automatically transfer it to your website via FTP. Your blog will therefore be hosted at your own URL, with all links and RSS connections pointing to your web address. Here's how to do it:
1. Before you begin, log on at your website via FTP and create a folder named "rss" in your root directory. Then make note of these items:
• FTP server address: yoursite.com
• FTP path: /rss/
• Blog filename: index.html (need not actually exist)
• Blog URL: http://www.yoursite.com/rss/
• FTP username: joeuser
• FTP password: ••••••••
2. Unless your blog is going to be about a single subject with chronological entries, you will probably want to organize it in some way. Unless you provide otherwise, visitors will see your most recent post when arriving at your blog, unless they clicked on a link to a particular article. You can organize your blog according to categories, as shown at the right (scroll up to see the navigation list):
• Blog Home
• Religion
• Politics
• Culture
• ... etc.
Prepare the text for a "Welcome" or "Introduction" for your blog. When you provide links to your blog on other websites or in emails, you can point to this article as a more appropriate entry point than your last, most recent post. This article will wind up as the only item in your "Home" folder, so will appear whenever anyone clicks on your "Blog Home" link. Here is an example:
4. Click the "Personal Information" "Edit" link and fill in the form. If "Blogger" doesn't appear under the "Try Something New" header, click the More " link under that header, then click "Blogger." The Blogger start page appears; click the CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW link to continue.
5. Fill in the forms to create a blog on Blogspot. On the second screen, enter a Blogger address if your wish, but DO NOT click "Continue"; click the "Advance Blog Setup" link instead to bring up the "Advance Blog Setup" form. Fill in the form using the information you collected above. Click "Continue" to save your information and bring up the "Choose A Template" page.
6. Choose the "Minima" template for now. Page templates can be tweaked to some extent, and you can also change templates whenever you wish later on. You can even create your own template if you need to have your blog exactly match the look and feel of the rest of your site. Click "Continue" to finish the setup process. Then click the "Start Posting" link.
7. Before posting anything, click on the "Settings" tab, and select its "Basic" section. The "Title" shown will appear at the top of your blog pages, and the "Description" will appear just below that. Enter a short description or tag line, answer the questions that follow as desired, then click the "Save Settings" button.
8. Select the "Formatting" section and change the default selections as needed or desired. Items of special interest here are "Time Zone" and "Convert line breaks." For everything else, the defaults are usually appropriate. Save your settings.
9. Select the "Comments" section, and indicate your preferences. "Show Comments" is recommended, as is "Show word verification." If you allow comments, you'll need to monitor that activity to ensure that what others share is tasteful and appropriate. Therefore be sure to enter a "Comment Notification Address" before clicking "Save Settings."
10. Return to the "Create" section under the "Posting" tab, and enter the title and text for your "welcome" page. Before entering your text, notice the "Labels for this post" box; type "home" in the box to create a unique category for this particular item. Whenever you create a new post, be sure to label it before you publish it. You can create a new category simply by typing its name in the label box. Existing categories will be displayed beneath the label box if you toggle the "Show all/Hide all" switch at the right end of the box. You can assign a post to more than one category by separating two or more labels with a comma.
11. Also notice the "Post Options" link. Click this to ensure that "Allow Reader Comments" is checked. You can also change the "Post time and date" if needed, which is useful when correcting errors in, or otherwise revising an existing article.
12. Then enter your title and text, using the "Preview/Hide Preview" switch to review and revise your post. When satisfied with your work, click the PUBLISH POST link.
13. If everything goes right, the "Publishing files to your blog ..." screen will momentarily appear, then the "Your blog published successfully." page will replace it. Click the "View Blog (in a new window)" link to see what others will see. If needed, click the "Edit post" link to make corrections and adjustments.
14. Notice the sidebar on the right side of your page. All of these items can be edited by switching to the "Template" tab and selecting the "Edit HTML" item. To add a navigation list to your template, scroll down to the <!-- Begin #sidebar --> section near the bottom of the code and find the "Edit-Me" links. Replace these with links to your content, which will look something like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/rss/index.html.
To set up an RSS connection to your blog from another site, you will be asked to provide a link to your blog's RSS feed. The URL for that is:
http://www.yoursite.com/rss/rss.xml
... or:
http://www.yoursite.com/rss/atom.xml
... depending upon the protocol that site prefers. Users who desire to do so may subscribe to your blog simply by clicking on the link at the bottom on any of its pages.
I hope this has proven helpful to you. Happy blogging!
[-=glw=-]
A good way to draw attention to yourself and your books is to include a "blog" on your website. The term "blog" derives from web log, which originally referred to a regularly updated journal or column published online. (See LiveJournal and The Drudge Report.) The term is now popularly, if not always accurately, applied to any collection of articles and stories, including even collections of photos, videos, and music files. The defining aspect has become the blog's vitality, rather than the nature of its content. Blogs that provide useful information, or articles that are interesting or entertaining, are likely to draw visitors and links to your site. That traffic works like word-of-mouth advertising, and eventually results in your pages winning higher rankings in search results.
"Syndication" is a term that originated in journalism, referring to the simultaneous publishing of proprietary content in a number of newspapers or other periodicals. Syndication is handled by agencies that buy articles, stories, columns, photographs, comic strips, or other features and distribute them for simultaneous publication by subscribing clients. Similar arrangements are found in radio and television broadcasting.
"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way to distribute designated web content to particular subscribers. The subscribers are people who have an interest in your website which is keen enough that they want to be informed about changes and newly added content. RSS is also useful for linking to your blog from other websites. For example, if you register at several social networking sites, it makes sense to host your blog at a single location, preferably your own website. You can then link to your blog from the profiles you set up on all the other sites. This avoids duplication, which might be interpreted as blog spamming, which is also called splogging. It also eliminates any chance that search engines might link to your articles at sites with a higher ranking that your own, your hard work thereby serving to direct traffic to someone else.
If your website is static, containing material that doesn't often change, there would ordinarily be no reason for anyone to be interested in a RSS feed from it. Therefore if you have no intention of becoming a "blogger," you know as much about this subject as you need to know, and there is no reason to continue beyond this point.
The syndicators on the web are called "aggregators." That will be you, but you'll will need some help from Google, or someone else. Blogs can be just blurbs (one-sided commentary), but are at their best when interactive. That means you should permit your readers to respond by entering comments of their own which other readers can also see and respond to. That immediately raises the probability of your blog's being open to spam and abuse. Special blog management software is used to help prevent that, and to permit you to manage your system. A couple of free applications that you can install on your own website are DasBlog and WordPress. If your main interest is blogging, you might be willing to become a blog site manager. Otherwise you can leave all that complication up to someone else. There are lots of sites that host blogs, but only a few who do that as their primary business. The leading free blog hosting provider is Google's Blogger. WordPress also provides free hosting as an alternative to the do-it-yourself approach.
Setting Up Your Blog
Blogger is very easy to use and usually works well. The following assumes that you have an existing website with your own registered domain name, and the usual FTP access to your space on the web server. While you actually manage your blog on Blogger, Blogger can be set up to automatically transfer it to your website via FTP. Your blog will therefore be hosted at your own URL, with all links and RSS connections pointing to your web address. Here's how to do it:
1. Before you begin, log on at your website via FTP and create a folder named "rss" in your root directory. Then make note of these items:
• FTP server address: yoursite.com
• FTP path: /rss/
• Blog filename: index.html (need not actually exist)
• Blog URL: http://www.yoursite.com/rss/
• FTP username: joeuser
• FTP password: ••••••••
2. Unless your blog is going to be about a single subject with chronological entries, you will probably want to organize it in some way. Unless you provide otherwise, visitors will see your most recent post when arriving at your blog, unless they clicked on a link to a particular article. You can organize your blog according to categories, as shown at the right (scroll up to see the navigation list):
• Blog Home
• Religion
• Politics
• Culture
• ... etc.
Prepare the text for a "Welcome" or "Introduction" for your blog. When you provide links to your blog on other websites or in emails, you can point to this article as a more appropriate entry point than your last, most recent post. This article will wind up as the only item in your "Home" folder, so will appear whenever anyone clicks on your "Blog Home" link. Here is an example:
FireRight Customer Support - Welcome
FireRight Controls is a division of Warner Instruments. We design and manufacture electronic temperature control systems for environmental and reliability test chambers, glass annealing furnaces, and ceramic kilns.
This is the portal to a variety of helpful information for users of FireRight products. Information of a more general nature is also available. Please notice the links on the left to find the support information you need.
If you are not able to locate the information you're looking for, we invite you to contact us directly. We'll be happy to provide further assistance.
Thank you for visiting fireright.com
4. Click the "Personal Information" "Edit" link and fill in the form. If "Blogger" doesn't appear under the "Try Something New" header, click the More " link under that header, then click "Blogger." The Blogger start page appears; click the CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW link to continue.
5. Fill in the forms to create a blog on Blogspot. On the second screen, enter a Blogger address if your wish, but DO NOT click "Continue"; click the "Advance Blog Setup" link instead to bring up the "Advance Blog Setup" form. Fill in the form using the information you collected above. Click "Continue" to save your information and bring up the "Choose A Template" page.
6. Choose the "Minima" template for now. Page templates can be tweaked to some extent, and you can also change templates whenever you wish later on. You can even create your own template if you need to have your blog exactly match the look and feel of the rest of your site. Click "Continue" to finish the setup process. Then click the "Start Posting" link.
7. Before posting anything, click on the "Settings" tab, and select its "Basic" section. The "Title" shown will appear at the top of your blog pages, and the "Description" will appear just below that. Enter a short description or tag line, answer the questions that follow as desired, then click the "Save Settings" button.
8. Select the "Formatting" section and change the default selections as needed or desired. Items of special interest here are "Time Zone" and "Convert line breaks." For everything else, the defaults are usually appropriate. Save your settings.
9. Select the "Comments" section, and indicate your preferences. "Show Comments" is recommended, as is "Show word verification." If you allow comments, you'll need to monitor that activity to ensure that what others share is tasteful and appropriate. Therefore be sure to enter a "Comment Notification Address" before clicking "Save Settings."
10. Return to the "Create" section under the "Posting" tab, and enter the title and text for your "welcome" page. Before entering your text, notice the "Labels for this post" box; type "home" in the box to create a unique category for this particular item. Whenever you create a new post, be sure to label it before you publish it. You can create a new category simply by typing its name in the label box. Existing categories will be displayed beneath the label box if you toggle the "Show all/Hide all" switch at the right end of the box. You can assign a post to more than one category by separating two or more labels with a comma.
11. Also notice the "Post Options" link. Click this to ensure that "Allow Reader Comments" is checked. You can also change the "Post time and date" if needed, which is useful when correcting errors in, or otherwise revising an existing article.
12. Then enter your title and text, using the "Preview/Hide Preview" switch to review and revise your post. When satisfied with your work, click the PUBLISH POST link.
13. If everything goes right, the "Publishing files to your blog ..." screen will momentarily appear, then the "Your blog published successfully." page will replace it. Click the "View Blog (in a new window)" link to see what others will see. If needed, click the "Edit post" link to make corrections and adjustments.
14. Notice the sidebar on the right side of your page. All of these items can be edited by switching to the "Template" tab and selecting the "Edit HTML" item. To add a navigation list to your template, scroll down to the <!-- Begin #sidebar --> section near the bottom of the code and find the "Edit-Me" links. Replace these with links to your content, which will look something like this:
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/home.html">Blog Home</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Religion.html">Religion</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Politics.html">Politics</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Culture.html">Culture</a></li>
... etc.
To set up an RSS connection to your blog from another site, you will be asked to provide a link to your blog's RSS feed. The URL for that is:
... or:
... depending upon the protocol that site prefers. Users who desire to do so may subscribe to your blog simply by clicking on the link at the bottom on any of its pages.
I hope this has proven helpful to you. Happy blogging!
[-=glw=-]
Labels: Book Marketing
posted by BoysMind at
11:02 PM
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