Optimize, optimize, optimize…

With so many ways to better your blog or web site, one of the easiest and most productive ways is to optimize your RSS feed.

Is your RSS (really simple syndication) feed important?

Here is what an expert says…

“RSS is one of the simplest and most effective ways to add value to your site.  Implementing RSS took one of our clients from not being ranked in the top 1000 results in Google to multiple top ten results.”

- Doug Hay, CEO of Expansion Plus Inc.

Most of these tips are things you can accomplish by changing some perimeters in your RSS settings.  Other optimizations can be done through people like FeedBurner (free) who I highly recommend.

Ten Tips for your RSS feed

1. 20 or more items, not 10.
2. Use full feeds, not partial feeds The mass reader base strongly prefers full text feeds. If you don’t have full text feeds, you are missing out on a potentially huge amount of traffic.
3. Use multiple feeds, organized by category, including latest comments by post.
4. Include compelling site description.
5. Don’t put tracking codes in URLs.
6. Free is good. Feedburner’s Pro features are free and they are good.
7. RSS feeds that contain enclosures (like podcasts) can get into additional RSS directories and engines.
8. Google Sitemaps supports feeds. If you can’t make an XML sitemap, you can use an RSS feed as one. (very important)
9. Add ’show notes’ to your podcast feeds.
10. Facebook allows you to import and promote your feed through the “import notes” feature. 

I hope these tips will help you as much as they helped me.  (I am implementing all of these tips today)  Did I miss something?  Did you need some help with a tip?  Are you reading this through my RSS Feed?  Let me know…