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#1 Mistake Most Blogs Do
As much as this might surprise most bloggers, the #1 mistake most blogs are doing is not publishing their content via e-mail, as a supplement to their RSS feeds. Just think about it: while RSS is growing strong, it still only penetrates about 5-6% of the American online population. Furthermore, according to a recent BlogAds survey, "only 12 percent of the blog reading audience said it used RSS always or often". If you're delivering your blog content only via RSS, you're missing out on about 80% or more of potential regular readership/followship. THE KEY BLOG PROBLEM There are millions of blogs already, but really few people have the time to watch more than a few daily. But if they come back just once a week, they can be quickly overwhelmed with the amount of new content. That's why it's crucial to provide a "best of", a helping hand to guide your readers to the "must-read" content you publish ? and delivering this content either as a standalone "blog-zine" or as part of your regular e-mail newsletter. WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? Deliver your blog posts as they are written via RSS, but then also publish a regular (weekly or monthly) e-mail e-zine with your "top blog posts" for those that are still not in to RSS. Don't do just one channel, do both. E-mail is still the #1 end-user content delivery channel ... whether we like it or not. Using e-mail (as a supplement to RSS) to deliver our content is just good business practice, at least for now. THE CHRIS PIRILLO EXAMPLE Chris Pirillo is the publisher of one of the most popular sites on the net, Lockergnome.com. He was actually the first to proclaim e-mail as being dead. But still, while he preferrs for his subscribers to use RSS instead of e-mail, that isn't stopping him from using or promoting either RSS or e-mail. COMPARING BLOGS, E-ZINES, E-MAIL AND RSS If you're reading this article and thinking that blogs are actually "beyond e-mail", just consider the following reality. RSS and e-mail are content delivery channels; the tools that enable us to deliver our content to end-users. Blogs and e-zines on the other hand are two different internet media content formats, differing in how/what content is provided and presented through them. RSS/e-mail and blogs/e-zines cannot be directly compared. Blog content and e-zine content can both be delivered via RSS and e-mail, and there is no direct business/logical relation between, for example, blogs and RSS. Blogs are "personal" conversations, opinions and news, delivered in a linear structure, usually written in a more personal style, and confined to a limited number of content types. E-zines on the other hand are more similar to magazines or newspapers, carrying content presented in a complex non-linear content structure, and having the ability to carry many different content types that do not mix well together if provided through a linear content structure. A typical e-zine might include: - an editorial; - a leading article, representing the prevailing topic of a specific e-zine issue; - supporting articles, clearly structured to show they are secondary to the leading article; - links to "best of" blog posts in the given timeframe; - links to the most relevant forum topics and posts; - a news section; - a featured client case study; - different advertisements (banner ads, textual ads, advertorials etc.); - a featured consultant; - a Q&A section; - a featured whitepaper; - etc. Providing all of this content demands a complex content structure and a strong and experienced editor. The blog format simply does not provide the level of structure needed to effectively present such a complex content mix. But that's not to say that blogs are in any way inferior to e-zines, they're just different. And businesses need both, and they need to deliver both via RSS and e-mail. Personal preferences towards content delivery channels and internet content media formats have no place in business. What matters is what our audiences want and how they want it. Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa2
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However, you're still within the window of opportunity if you take the time to learn how to do this properly. You can get free details on how to do that at helpmerss.com . "My Yahoo!" RSS Headline module Coming Out of Beta? If I had to guess, I'd say all signs point to yes. When that happens, Yahoo's RSS/Atom directory will likely contain only those who added their feeds early. New feeds seeking to be included will probably face stricter standards. If you don't have one yet don't worry, because it's never been easier to make one. If you can cut and paste, there are tools all over the Net that will show you how- some will even generate the file for you. However, there are still certain guidelines you need to follow with your feed to get a good result out of Yahoo - it's not as simple as adding your feed now that there are more competing listings. Yahoo is still accepting new sources for RSS feeds. Readers of my last book state that they are getting excellent results following my instructions, though initial inclusion no longer occurs at the same rate. Plenty of markets have few feeds available, or none at all. Your site could fill that void. That means you still have a chance at a first page ranking. The traffic I get on a daily basis from My Yahoo readers alone sounds like I just like to brag. And I do, but that's hardly the point. The point is, there's no place you can even go to buy the caliber of exposure to the quality of audience that reads feeds. The typical audience that accesses information by feed are also blog readers. A study this summer estimated that the 69.3% of blog readers are aged 29-50, and that 40% of this audience are people who have household incomes greater than $90,000. 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Speaking and thinking come much easier than writing. These processes just flow out naturally like a river of consciousness; sometimes we hardly have to think about doing them. Anyone and everyone can write words down on paper but that doesn't mean it's 'good writing', myself included. Like most things in life, our society already takes writing for granted which is proving to expose more of our ignorance. Writing is a new form of expression, and if we want to do it in a way that the masses can connect with our ideas, we have to think much more simply and clearly about this art.
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