RSS, believe it or not, stands for Really Simple Syndication. It's the most popular of the web feed formats, which are used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries or news articles. RSS can be really useful on your website.

The main benefit of RSS, and the reason for its success, is that, unlike other web feed formats, it was designed to be used by anyone who wanted it – others were designed with a specific service in mind. This means that any one user can use an aggregator or feed reader to view RSS feeds from blogs and news sites, as well as podcasts and video-logs.

There are two ways you can utilise RSS on your business website. The first is just to add a feed of someone else's content. A news feed, particularly one that is specifically related to your business, may keep people browsing your site for a few more seconds. RSS Feed Reader offers a free service whereby you can add a feed reader to your site and choose which feeds to include.

The benefit of this solution is that you don't have to spend any time writing articles, or pay for writers to produce articles for you. Constantly updating content will attract search engines to your site, although they are becoming wise to duplicate content, so you will not see such a boost to your rankings as you may have done in the past.

Better than borrowing someone else's feed, however, is to create your own feed with your own unique content. Not only does unique content attract visitors and search engines alike, but if you're using your own material, there is nothing to stop you from putting a link to your own website at the end of every article. Then, if anyone else decides to add your feed on their own website, you will be getting (probably highly relevant) links back to your site.

The easiest way to syndicate your content is to use a blogging service. Almost all blogs are automatic RSS feeds, because many members of blogging communities use RSS to keep up with their friends' and colleagues' posts.

However, if you'd rather not use a blogging service, you could instead use something like FeedPublish, an online tool, or FeedForAll, a software package.

RSS feeds are XML-based files. A complete guide on how to create RSS feeds from scratch can be found on Search Engine Watch.

You can also use RSS to keep up-to-date with news that interests you. Most web browsers, including Firefox 2, Safari 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9, have built-in RSS support of varying quality. There are several plug-ins available for Firefox which improve its RSS support. Alternatively, you could use an email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or download a dedicated RSS aggregator such as BlogBridge or RSSOwl. There are also online aggregators available, such as Bloglines and NewsIsFree.

To subscribe to a feed you find online, just click where you see the orange and white RSS logo, or click "Subscribe". Your browser should then let you decide with which application you would like to subscribe to the feed.

By Helena Henderson

For more information on domain names and domain name registration questions please feel free to contact Domainmonster.com support team who will be happy to assist you.