Why RSS Feeds For Build A Niche Store?
I decided to create an RSS feed for my BANS site so that I could promote it on Wordpress blogs that have the CommentLuv plugin installed. If you leave a comment on a blog that has this plugin enabled, it will try and pull the latest post from your RSS feed, using the title of that post as an anchored link in the comment area. So not only do you will you receive an anchored link for your name but one for your post title as well.
Out of the box, BANS doesn't come equipped with an RSS feed so I needed to come up with a way to create one myself. The feed I created is essentially a list of all of my BANS' store pages with my keywords as the titles of the 'posts' and short contextual descriptions of each page.
Creating An RSS Feed For Your Build A Niche Store
I know there are several RSS creator programs for sale on the market but I'm writing this specifically for those who don't have the money to spend on new blogging software or anyone that wants to save a few bucks. I have to say though, for all intensive purposes the method I'm going to show you is just as easy and effective as paid software and only utilizes one extra step for similar results.
I realize that some people are not as experienced as others when it comes to some things so if you're feeling lost I've provided instructions below.
* Head on over to WebDevTips to take advantage of their free RSS creation tool.
* Choose the number of headlines you'd like to have appear in your RSS feed. This number will correspond to the number of store pages on your BANS site.
* Enter Your Site Title - This will be the title of your feed as it appears in a reader. I just used the title of my BANS store. If you have an & in your site title be sure to use the html code (&) instead of just typing the &.
* Enter Your Site URL – This is the address of your BANS store. Ex: yourstore.com
* Enter Your Site Description – Describe your site in a few sentences. Although this doesn't help us with the comment luv plugin in, it will come in handy later when we submit our feed to RSS aggregator sites (more on this later).
* Enter Your Language - Self explanatory
* Enter The DOCTYPE – Default-RSS
* Enter Your Headline 1 Title – Now this is important. This will be the anchored link that you will be planting when you are commenting. The CommentLuv plugin will pull the “latest post” from your feed and since this link will sit atop of your feed it is considered the most recent. So if you're working 'inexpensive inkball weapons' enter that in this box.
* Enter Your Headline 1 URL – This is the URL that your anchored link above will be pointing to. You can enter your homepage or one of your store pages.
* Enter Your Headline 1 Description : Write a short blurb that is related to your anchored link. Some feed aggregators will display teaser text so it might be helpful to write a few sentences here. In the end, if you feel like this won't make a difference then skip it, personally I chose to go the extra mile. Rinse and repeat for all of your store pages.
* When you've completed all of your store pages hit the 'make the code' button and your code will automagically appear in the box below it. Copy the code in the box and place in the text editor of your choice (I just used good ole' notepad). This is the extra step that I mentioned earlier that the paid software does for you.
* Go to File->Save As->save your file as “feed.rss” without the quotes. You should have a file with the .rss extension now that is ready to be uploaded to your server. I'd suggest keeping a copy of your RSS file on your home computer, it'll come in handy later when you want to edit it.
* Fire up Filezilla or your favorite FTP program and upload the feed.rss file into our public_html folder or wherever your BANS files are located.
* Now that your file is on your server you're going to want to modify the header.php text to allow your rss feed to be served. Login to your BANS store click Template->header.php. Insert this code with your store information, directly beneath the head element.
Click Save.
Congratulations you now have an RSS feed for your BANS store! If you're using Firefox you can click on the RSS symbol in the address bar of your site to test out your feed, or just type in yourstore.com/feed.rss into your address bar.
Keep in mind that WebDevTips' tool creates an RSS 0.91 feed which is technically deprecated and considered obsolete which means your feed won't be validated if you test it. I'm not an RSS expert but from what I know you're only missing out on some of the functionality of the newer RSS 2.0 standard, which for these uses isn't really required.
I tested my new feed out in a few modern readers like Google Reader and Feed Demon and didn't have any problems obtaining or viewing it.
Modifying Your Build A Niche Store RSS Feed
Okay, you now have your new feed which will place your chosen anchored text in the comment area. So what if you want to do some deep linking for other pages on our BANS sites? All you have to do now is manually change the order of our pages in your feed.rss file. You'll see entries in your file that begin with the item tag and end with the closed /item tag.
Just cut and paste the entry that corresponds to the anchored link that you want to comment with and move it to the top of the list. Save the file and you're done. Now, upload the file to your hosting server and overwrite the existing file. Voila, your feed has been modified and you can go on another comment run with your new anchored text.
Submit Your Build A Niche Store RSS Feed
Now that you have an RSS feed, you can submit your feed to a wide array of feed aggregators that will display your anchored links on their websites. Here's a list of 45 sites to submit your RSS feed.
I was successfully in submitting my RSS feed to all of the sites which didn't require an email but haven't gotten around to submitting to the other sites nor have I tried to claim “my blog” at Technorati, MyBlogLog, or Bumpzee. I will eventually make time for this as well as utilize the RSS feed in Squidoo pages and HubPages. There are lots of websites, many more than the 45 listed, that display RSS feeds and with a little research you'll get lots of links!
Again, thanks to Vic for recommending this strategy... great advice, as always! I hope you found this post on how to create RSS feeds for BANS helpful and if so pass it on to others to show them how to get a few extra links.
