More and more companies are adding RSS feeds to their advertising policy. Combined with Blogs, News services and websites, RSS make the advertising strategy much stronger than without using it. RSS allows users the flexibility to regain control of their content. With RSS the content is not forced on customers. In fact with RSS consumers are able to choose the content they wish to view.
How to make an RSS Feed
RSS feeds contain what are referred to as "items". The items are usually connected in some way and contain a commontheme or other similarity.
Each item contains:
- title
- desription
- link
The title and desription should be written to decribe the content and the link should reference the webpage that contains the actual content.
Like HTML the XML file uses open and close tags to designate the title, description link. Tags are enclosed in brackets<>, like standard html and the close tag contains a forward slash /.
The following is what an item in an XML file looks like:
<title>Write the title here</title>
<description>Write the decription here</decription>
<link>http://www.linktoarticlehere.com</link>
And as mentioned earlier, an RSS feeds contains items and like the tags above, an open and close tag is used to distinguish between items.
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<item>
<title>Write your title here</title>
<description>Write description here</description>
<link>http://www.yourlinkhere.com</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Another tittle goes here</title>
<description> Another description here</description>
<link>http://www.anotherlink here.com</link>
</item>
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An RSS feed is a series of items, these items are chained together to create what we call a "Channel". The channel appears at the top of the file and tells people how the items relate to each other. Like items channels use tittle, description and links tags to describe its content. The open channel tag <channel> occurs before the first item and the close tag: </channel> occurs after the last item.
<channel>
<title>-------</title>
<description>----------------</description>
<link>---------------</link>
</item>
<item>
---------
---------
</item>
Finally you will need to designate the file by indicating it is an XML file by inserting xml and rss definition tags at the beginning and </rss> at the very end.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>The Channel Title Goes Here</title>
<description>The explanation og how the items are related here</description>
<link>http://www.linkhere.com</link>
<item>
<title>The Title Goes here</title>
<description>The decription Goes here</description>
<link>http://www.linkhere.com</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>Another Title here</title>
<description>Another description here</description>
<link>http://wwwanotherlink.com</link>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
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When you save the file, be sure to save it as a xml file.
Validate your work to see if there are any errors
