Advertising in RSS Feeds: Are we risking disaster?
Advertising in RSS feeds is something that Google is consideringoffering to its Adwords and Adsense customers. RSS stands forReally Simply Syndication and is a really easy way for awebmaster to share their news and information stories to theworld wide web.
Up until recently, RSS feeds had very few options for makingmoney with them directly. Of course having at least one RSS feedon your website content will certainly build the relationshipyou have with your website visitors which will result in moresales for your company, making direct money from syndicatingyour RSS feed wasn't possible until recently.
Is Putting Advertising in RSS Feeds a good idea?
There is risk to placing advertising in an RSS feed. Yourvisitors are being bombarded by spam in their email boxes on adaily basis. Everywhere you go online you run into advertisingin many different forms. Is it really a good idea to putAdvertising in an RSS feed?
I think it is and here's why. The internet is the greatestsource of information that any of us have access to. Much ofthis information is free. The problem is, it takes real effortnot to mention knowledge to get that information online in auseful form. People and organizations that are good at doingthis deserve to be compensated. If advertising in all forms wassomehow able to be banned today on the internet, tomorrow, theamount of quality information available for free online woulddrop dramatically. In order to try to earn a living, mostcontent providers would immediately have to seek some form ofcompensation online.
A right way to add advertising and a wrong way
Even though I'm in favor of seeing advertising in RSS feeds, Ithink that there has to be great moderation in the approach youuse. If too many items in the RSS feed are advertising, a userwill simply unsubscribe themselves from your feed. You wouldalso have to be concerned about webmasters who pick up yourfeed. If you don't provide enough quality content in your RSSfeeds, you'll find it very difficult to get anyone to syndicatethe RSS feed.
I would suggest that you keep your advertising to less than 20%of your feed. That would mean that in an RSS feed with 10 itemsin it, you have no more than 2 items that are advertising. I cansee this number though getting dictated by the likes of Googleand other advertising agencies.
The advertising must add value to your visitor
The advertising will need to look like a news story in order tobe successful. If it is simply tagged as advertising, the clickthrough rate will most likely be horrible. At the same timethough, the link will need to be truly useful for someonelooking for information on that particular topic. If you have afeed on maintaining a vibrant garden and the advertisers' linkis about being computer parts, this would very much turn offvisitors and webmasters alike. Companies like Google though havebecome pretty good at targeting their advertisers to the contextof the page or content so I don't see this as a big problem whenusing these services.
Should you add advertising to your RSS feeds? Yes, but becautious about it. RSS feeds are truly useful to your overallmarketing goals even if you abstain from putting any advertisingin them.
Up until recently, RSS feeds had very few options for makingmoney with them directly. Of course having at least one RSS feedon your website content will certainly build the relationshipyou have with your website visitors which will result in moresales for your company, making direct money from syndicatingyour RSS feed wasn't possible until recently.
Is Putting Advertising in RSS Feeds a good idea?
There is risk to placing advertising in an RSS feed. Yourvisitors are being bombarded by spam in their email boxes on adaily basis. Everywhere you go online you run into advertisingin many different forms. Is it really a good idea to putAdvertising in an RSS feed?
I think it is and here's why. The internet is the greatestsource of information that any of us have access to. Much ofthis information is free. The problem is, it takes real effortnot to mention knowledge to get that information online in auseful form. People and organizations that are good at doingthis deserve to be compensated. If advertising in all forms wassomehow able to be banned today on the internet, tomorrow, theamount of quality information available for free online woulddrop dramatically. In order to try to earn a living, mostcontent providers would immediately have to seek some form ofcompensation online.
A right way to add advertising and a wrong way
Even though I'm in favor of seeing advertising in RSS feeds, Ithink that there has to be great moderation in the approach youuse. If too many items in the RSS feed are advertising, a userwill simply unsubscribe themselves from your feed. You wouldalso have to be concerned about webmasters who pick up yourfeed. If you don't provide enough quality content in your RSSfeeds, you'll find it very difficult to get anyone to syndicatethe RSS feed.
I would suggest that you keep your advertising to less than 20%of your feed. That would mean that in an RSS feed with 10 itemsin it, you have no more than 2 items that are advertising. I cansee this number though getting dictated by the likes of Googleand other advertising agencies.
The advertising must add value to your visitor
The advertising will need to look like a news story in order tobe successful. If it is simply tagged as advertising, the clickthrough rate will most likely be horrible. At the same timethough, the link will need to be truly useful for someonelooking for information on that particular topic. If you have afeed on maintaining a vibrant garden and the advertisers' linkis about being computer parts, this would very much turn offvisitors and webmasters alike. Companies like Google though havebecome pretty good at targeting their advertisers to the contextof the page or content so I don't see this as a big problem whenusing these services.
Should you add advertising to your RSS feeds? Yes, but becautious about it. RSS feeds are truly useful to your overallmarketing goals even if you abstain from putting any advertisingin them.
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