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Are Your RSS Feeds Auto Discovery Friendly?

Lauren — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 13:51:03 +0000

Just imagine. Every time someone visits your website, their browser notifies them of your RSS feed. No, it’s not as interuptive and no where near as annoying as pop-up subscription boxes but still a good chance to get people to subscribe to something you have to offer. In a nutshell, that’s how auto discovery works. There ‘s usually a small flag somewhere in the browser telling people your feed is available for them and if the visitor is interested in subscribing, they will simply click subscribe – much like bookmarking a page.

Now you know how it works, why is it so important? For one, many feed readers and browsers already support auto discovery RSS feeds. But perhaps what’s more important, Microsoft is incorporating this starting with Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer still commands a good chunk of browser share out there, especially those who are new to the Internet or non technical Internet users. If your RSS feeds are not auto discovery enabled, it’s a good chance you’ll lose out on a bunch of subscribers.

As it is today, browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari can auto discover feeds. Many use this to subscribe because it’s just so much easier. While this group may not be that large but why should you not take advantage? If just making your feeds auto discovery friendly you get an extra subscriber, even if it’s only one it would be worth it because it costs nothing but maybe 2 minutes of your time.

So how do you find out if your feeds are auto discovery friendly? The good news is, if you’re using a blog to manage your content, many have this feature built in. But it doesn’t hurt to just check it anyway. If you don’t use a blog, chances are, your feed is not auto discovery enabled.

Before I go, here are two little tips that would help your RSS distribution and subscription using auto discovery.

1. Put the auto discovery tag in other web pages too. Just because it’s not a blog doesn’t mean you can’t have an RSS feed on it. Take advantage of that, put your feed in your main website’s template. Now you have two opportunities to get in touch with people. When you update your website and when you update your blog.

2. If you use a service like FeedBurner to track your subscriptions, remember to update the feed URL in your blog or website template. This way, you’re capturing all your feed traffic statistics.

What’s next? Go make your RSS feeds auto discovery friendly right now. Because RSS is not always visible to us, don’t run the risk of forgetting this.

About the author

Lynette Chandler helps entreprenuers leverage readily available technology for their marketing. Learn more about RSS and blogging at TechBasedPlugins.com

Fun With Photos

Lauren — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:16:20 +0000

I have discovered the fun of finding and using stock photos in my blog posts and on my web pages. For certain posts, or sites, finding just the right image can really set the tone or add to what you want to say, conveying the message with a visual.

One of my favorite places to look for stock photos is www.iStockPhoto.com. It’s one of my favorite places to go when I want to find a fun image for a blog post, or a set of images, like I used to set the “place” at Mom’s Online Retreat. The pictures aren’t free, and purchase price depends on the size of the image you want – but for my needs I can purchase 10 images for $14.

You can get a lot of uses out of one image though with a little photo editing. Here’s a good example, my latest, favorite image…

has already been turned into this…

I love this because I can get so many uses out of this one image – adding text for my Coordinator Challenges that will be starting at Mom’s Online Retreat, or maybe as a “Specials’ board to post on the front page to draw visitor’s to The Shoppes.

So, consider using images in your blog posts and websites. Gives the reader something more to look at than just ads, and can really aid in creating a nice visual for your visitor. What a way to spice up your pages.

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Back at Mom’s Online Retreat

Lauren — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:36:39 +0000

She’s my baby – my very first website. I go weeks at a time working on the site – updating everything, freshening it it up, but am so bad about actually staying up-to date! Mom’s Online Retreat still has so much room for growth! It’s evolved as I have online, and with my higher speed on the internet I’m finally finding the time to bring her back to life!

I had to take down the Scrapbook Shoppe as I am no longer with TLC, but have added a new Home Spa Shoppe (a desire of mine for awhile) and am featuring the handmade/homemade bath and body products created by a fellow Mom, and owner of The Scented Tub. For now, I’ve listed the HomeSpa Shoppe in my side navigation at Mom’s Online Retreat, and in the Retreat Shoppes Directory. The full line of products is available for purchase through my links to the store. Soon though I will have a HomeSpa Shoppe page that will feature some specials of my own, from Mom’s Online Retreat. I’ve got some specials in mind just in time for the holiday shopping season. Oh, wait that seems to have already started! LOL!

There are lots of ideas I have for building up The Shoppes at Mom’s Online Retreat – next will be the Holiday Shoppe, which I plan to keep open all year round, and to round them off will be the Greeting Card Shoppe. Posts for the near future.

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