Many SEO experts believe that incorporating targeted and relevant RSS content feeds from high ranking web sites within your web site as part of an overall SEO strategy can enhance your search engine ranking across the SERP’s including Google, Yahoo and MSN.  It’s a known fact that if you keep your web site updated with fresh new content then Google will reward you but creating new content on a daily basis can be a challenging task and this is where RSS Feeds can help.

The aim of this article is to provide you with an overview to RSS feeds for Joomla and the reasons why you should use them for your Joomla web site. Again with all articles I don’t claim to be an expert in RSS feeds and the subject is open to debate but Joomla is all about sharing knowledge and at Joomlaseo that is what we like to do. For the SEO experts this might be a little boring but if you are new to SEO or Joomla then the following might be useful to you.

The first port of call is to give you a definition of an RSS Feed as taken from the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_Feed

RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by news websites and weblogs. They are used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, webfeed, RSS stream, or RSS channel.

Joomla RSS support

The next stage will look at Joomla and the inbuilt support it offers for RSS feeds and syndication of content.

Joomla currently offers the following RSS functionality

• You can add and manage as many RSS feeds as you wish using Joomla from the administrator console plus you can display where the RSS feed will appear on your web site using module positions.
• Joomla provides you with complete control over the RSS feeds based on the number of items to display and when to display them.
• Joomla supports a number of different RSS feed standards including RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, ATOM 0.3 and OPML
• Joomla also enables you to syndicate your news to other web sites and blogs.
• A number of 3rd party RSS feed modules and components are available for Joomla including DS-Syndicate and RSS 2 Joomla auto import which are included in the Joomlaseo repository.

So what’s so great about RSS feeds ?

When a user visits your web site they expect to see new and relevant content and the same can be applied to the search engine bots who visit your site on a daily basis. The fact is search engines expect to see new and fresh content and your search engine ranking can be effected based on how upto date your content is.

This is where RSS feeds play a key role. If you include 2 or 3 well respected RSS feeds from high ranking sites which includes content relevant to your site then the SERP's will reward you. The key is not to fill your site with hundreds of RSS feeds and hope to get a number one position in Google because this will not happen. RSS feeds are designed to compliment and enhance your existing Joomla site content.

Do your research and find web sites who offer quality RSS feeds which has some direct relevance to your web site subject matter.  Once you have found the RSS feeds add them to  specific sections, categories of your site. So for example you have a topic which covers web hosting for joomla then you could include a feed from a respected hosting forum or site. If possible try and add the feeds to categories or topics which are relevent to feeds coming into your site.

Syndicate your content

We have talked about including content specific RSS feeds within your web site but another approach is to syndicate your content across other web sites. This can be achieved in a number of different ways.

Activate your Syndicate module.

You can do this from the Joomla administrator console which will enable users to click on the relevant RSS feed button and include your content on there web site. The benefit of doing the above is that the robots will index the site where your xml feed appears and following the links to your site therefore improving your search engine position based on link backs and relevance.

Submit your RSS feeds

The next approach is to submit your site to a growing number of XML feed sites who accept and publish XML feeds which are then distributed across hundreds of web sites on the net. If your XML feed gets accepted then you may attract lots of new traffic and your position across the search engines will increase.

Where can I publish my RSS feeds ?

We have included a number of web sites who currently accept RSS feeds but if you search Google you can find hundreds of web sites accepting RSS feeds.

http://www.syndic8.com/
http://www.completerss.com/AddFeed.aspx
http://w.moreover.com/cgi-local/site/sourcesubmission.pl
http://pingomatic.com/?oldpinger
http://www.rssfeeds.com/suggest_wizzard.php
http://www.stepnewz.com/sn/suggest_feeds.asp
http://www.feed-directory.com/addfeed

Where can I get RSS feeds from ?

Most of the big content web sites including Yahoo, BBC, computerworld, cnet and Joomla all syndicate XML feeds. The important point is to search for a site which has a high ranking and also has relevant content which can enhance or compliment your site content.

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