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How to Use Your Google API Key as Your Secret Weapon: Part Two (updated)

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaul

Unlike part one , the rest of this article series will outline fewer Google API applications, as it focuses on only one thing. By the time you finish reading it, you will know how to implement what in my humble opinion, is the best way to use certain Google API Applications to enhance your own site.

This simple idea isn�t new. It has been used by dozens, perhaps hundreds of sites. You may have even attempted to use this idea yourself, but gave up because of the amount of time involved, or how much it used to cost to attempt to put into practice - it used to take weeks just to compile enough information to get started.

Now, several Google API applications make this particular kind of major site improvement much faster and easier to carry out.

You can now combine free tools that help you create an RSS feed about your site with the power of your free Google API key, to transform your site into an industry leader on your site's topic. You probably already knew that you can collect RSS feeds and have the content displayed on your site, and also create a feed of your site and its updates without spending any money. With your Google API key, you can now leverage the power of the RSS format in less time.

What is an RSS feed, and why does your site need one?

Briefly, its most common abbreviation is �Really Simple Syndication�. The purpose of an RSS feed is to distribute the headlines of news or content that appears on your site. Once the feed is compiled, all you need to do is syndicate your content - and it doesn�t have to be just yours.

RSS has been around for a while, but is becoming progressively popular, as the end-user base increases, and becomes more education. Also, site owners like you and I who are becoming more frustrated with the ever-increasing barriers to distributing newsletters.

There�s another reason why your visitors may prefer to subscribe to your RSS feed instead of your newsletter that we�ll get to shortly. For now, let�s focus on the reason you need one.

One of the greatest things about using RSS feeds to get your site more visibility is that the headlines don�t need to be just about your particular site, as I mentioned before. You could also turn your web property into the news desk for your entire niche. Especially if no one else is doing this in your field, it can turn your home page into the destination for anyone who wants to know what is happening in your industry.

Why would you want to do this?

1- More free traffic to your site

Once you have an RSS feed, you can get additional exposure to your website by promoting your feed at dozens of high-traffic directories. People will go to these sites, looking for an RSS feed about their favorite topic, and sign-up to get the feeds pushed to them - this is great for newsletter publishers not only because these updates can direct them back to your site, but because it cuts out the time you would need to spend managing your ezine.

2- More free traffic to your site

Especially if you narrowly target the news at your site to a popular but under-served demographic, sooner or later, Google may recognize your site as an industry leader in your category for its fresh relevant content on the subject.

As a result, not only can this increase your overall page rank, and get your site spidered more often, the rankings of the keywords you are listed for can also begin to climb as a result.

3- More free traffic to your site

The sites that index your feed must point to your site in order to access and update it. For sites that carry an information page about the data that your feed contains, it often means a free incoming link from their site to yours, often from a site with high Google Page Ranks.

Getting the idea?

You can get high-quality, targeted traffic to your site from implementing the steps I'll be outlining in this series. It's quite a project and may take a while, but anyone who can build a site can do it.

If you're wary about setting up pages of your site that will have users leaving, you can set up a members-only section that you give away free with purchases of your product, or with subscriptions to your newsletter.

Now that you understand the reasoning behind this idea, part three will go through the steps you'll need to take in order to make it work for you.

About the author:
In the next article, I�ll give you an overview on how you can do this with your own site, using a combination of free RSS tools and Google API implementations, which, as I�ve outlined in the first part, are also available at no cost. You can read part three now at - or for more free traffic secrets, subscribe at ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com

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Tracking and Measuring RSS Feeds
by: S. Housley

Measuring and tracking RSS while a fairly simple concept, is really anything but. Unlike websites, RSS have the added caveat of potential syndication, making accurate tracking a challenge to anyone but the extremely tech savvy.

It is not unrealistic for marketers to want to know how many subscribers they have, which items in their feeds attract the most interest, or how many click-throughs are generated as a result of an RSS feed.

There are a number of 3rd party providers who focus on tracking the consumption of RSS feeds. Some solutions are rudimentary but likely sufficient for a small business testing the waters with RSS. Other RSS tracking solutions are more complex and while they can come close to being accurate, with syndication there is no solution that tracks with 100% accuracy.

Techniques Used to track RSS Consumption

Small businesses can view web logs to provide information on how many times a specific file (RSS feed) is requested. The logs and information is rudimentary but will give a basic sense of a feeds success. Many 3rd party tracking options have additional tracking information available.

Hosting

The most common method to track the number of feed accesses or individuals accessing a feed is to use a 3rd party feed host. Companies like FeedBurner essentially track feeds based on accesses. The downside to using a 3rd party like Feedburner, is that the url is a FeedBurner url and any PageRank or popularity associated with the url will benefit the feed host rather than the feed creator. Additionally, no distinction is made between unique views or syndicate feeds.

FeedBurner provides a free no frills service to host RSS feeds and they have been proactive in circumventing user concerns. Recently implementing a service that eases users concerns about migrating from FeedBurner. There is a 3 step process for users interested in migrating from FeedBurner's free service, implementing a permanent redirect, and url forwarding.

Details can be found at: http://www.burningdoorc.om/feedburner/archives/001251.html

Some publishers, who were concerned about lock-in or wanted to retain control of the domain and feed urls often resist a hosting service. The new program FeedBurner Partner Pro is not free, but allows for users to point to their own domain, retaining complete control of their feeds without sacrificing statistical tracking.

The downside to using a service like FeedBurner is that some filtering applications used on corporate proxy servers block feeds residing on FeedBurner or other free hosts.

Redirects

Companies like SyndicateIQ have more complex tracking solutions that generate unique urls for each subscriber. The tracking benefits to such a customized solution is obvious. Individual user habits can be monitored and any users abusing their access and inappropriately syndicating a feeds content can have their feed turned off. The downside of course is that the success of RSS is in a large part due to the anonymity. Users don't want their personal habits tracked.

Considering the venture capital interest in these 3rd party hosting services. It is important to note that their value is in the data that they collect. As with any 3rd party service, it goes without saying that publishers should read the privacy policy carefully, be aware of who owns the rights to the collected information, and how that information might be used. It goes without saying that the value in many of the free services currently available lies in their aggregate data.

Uniquely Named Transparent Images

Uniquely named transparent 1x1 graphics can be added to the description field of an RSS feed. Users can use standard web logs to see the number of times the image is viewed and determine the number of times the feed was accessed.

Companies Specializing in Tracking and RSS Metrics

Pheedo - Pheedo creates tools that enable individuals, organizations and corporations to promote, analyze, and optimize their weblogs and content.

http://www.pheedo.com

SyndicateIQ - SyndicateIQ's position in the content distribution chain provides clients a set of analytics.

http://www.syndicateiq.com/

FeedBurner - FeedBurner offers a full range of services to help you build awareness, track circulation, and implement revenue-generating programs in your feed(s).

http://www.feedburner.com

Each individual using RSS needs to make a decision of the extent and importance of the analytics they require. Realizing that any system they employ is not going to be perfect.

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