RSS Syndication for Actinic

[Jim Riley]

Yesterday, Jan and I discussed an idea I have been musing on. Perhaps other Actinic users might have a view too that would help determine whether the idea is a flyer (or a damp squid).

I'm a big fan of RSS. We use it to syndicate content from our site (e.g. news articles, press releases). It is a great way to get qualified web traffic without having to pay affiliate or pay-per-click fees.

Wouldnt it be great if we could offer an RSS feed of our Actinic content?

E.g. A Product section RSS feed which displays (for each item in the product section):
- Product name
- Price
- Description
- Link (to Actinic acatalog page)
- Image (maybe)

In theory we have all the data to be able to do this. MS Access can export to XML (as can Crystal reports - more powerfully).

The XML export can be assigned to a schema that is RSS compliant.

But I guess we need a utility to:
(1) Select the products/sections/subsections to include in the feed)
(2) Generate the RSS-compliant XML

I'm sure that this is similar in concept to the Froogle, Kelkoo feed utilities (although I think that they output csv files rather than xml)

What do you think?

Any takers? Daft idea?

Jim

[DaveT]

Yes good idea and probably an extension of the Froogle concept. Technically it shouldn't be any more difficult to apply the data export routine to include tags for XML.

You might also need to give people clear instructions on how to get the feed of course.

[BPJSURF]

RSS feeds are cool

Its a cool idea having an RSS feed for your Actinic product. But what value or use would it serve? I dont know that you would want to syndicate your content to the traditional RSS synicators? or would you? Could this be a new form of informational spamming?

We syndicate our blog content to about 45 differnt sources. I have yet to see a product orientated rss syndication source? Maybe this is a new business opurtunity as it does seem like a cool idea and much better the having to build differnt feeds for yahoo, froogle and bizrate which each have their nuances.

Its a very cool concept I must say. Think its worth looking into.

Brian

[dave_finlayson]

Whilst I like this idea too I'm not so sure that I would be happy putting my entire catalogue online in a format than can (as far as I understand it) be imported straight into a database.

Playing devils advocate, do you think there is an issue with essiantially supplying a full database of your products to whoever chooses to use it. If you competition phoned you today and asked for your product database because they couldn't be bothered looking up your site would you give it to them? Would a startup us your rss as a potential blueprint for their site? Or is it really not a major issue, offering it to your customers far more important than any downside?

Having said that on a smaller scale for special offers etc it could be a great tool!

Dave

Dave

[Jim Riley]

Yes - I was thinking more about a "special offers", "Best sellers" or "latest products" type feed rather than the whole catalogue. I think the feed would also be more selective in terms of the product content displayed - e.g. product name, short description, price, image, link etc

The beauty of RSS is that it would enable Actinic users to display content outside of the acatalog folder, but on the same website (a big win for us) as well as on other relevant websites

Jim

[BPJSURF]

Syndicated web blogs delivery traffic to your catalog

Jim,
Now your idea seems to be taking more shape. I have some experience here with web blogs and Actinic so I will post my experience.

We run our own web blog on http://suresolutionsinc.com covering issues about organic search engine optimization and we try and post once or twice a month. I recently implemented a blog on http://bravesurf.com and http://earthanimal.com. The eartanimal.com blog is set up for topical articles on holistic pet remedies and we include a product link from the catalog which relates to the topic in the blog. We just started using this tool as a promotional method to drive traffic. The results are very good as the RSS feed gets syndicated and good content gets spread around and picked up very well by search engines.

I will put down some tips to help those who are interested in using web blogs to build traffic:
-Select a highly functional web blog tool which offers a simple interface to create all the xml formats you will want to distribute. We use and recommend Serendipity (available on SourceForge) It’s very easy to use.
-Next integrate the design theme of your core website into the blog so that people viewing the blog know it’s your domain and web site content.
-Include a text link from your main home page to your web blog
-Post content you believe your core audience will recognize as good value to read.
-Do not spam information or advertisements from your blog.
-Take time to get you blog syndicated through the major RSS new sources.
-Post as often as possible so build useful content under your domain.

We are about to launch a new web blog under http://soccerpro.com. This is an actinic site as well. The plan is to post coaching tips, training and practice formats for soccer coaches. With each post we will include a coupon link to a training product. I believe this format will work quiet well for building traffic based on content while delivering the new traffic to the catalog.

If you’re looking to deploy a web blog to build catalog traffic or if you need assistance with the design / technical implementation of a web blog feel free to contact Sure Solutions. We will try to help you or deploy a web blog for you. Getting syndicated is the key to your success with a web blog.

Brian

[Jim Riley]

Brian - thanks for your ideas.

I'm a big fan of blogs too - and the way in which they can be syndicated. I like the idea of linking products to blog posts.

But what I had in mind doesnt require blogging software. The idea is simply that a plugin creates an RSS-compatible XML feed directly from the Actinic product database - based on the particular criteria specified by the user. E.g. "list the ten latest products"; "list all our special offers", "list products with a price of less than £...". That feed can be displayed in an RSS reader, displayed using javascript on a web page, hosted on many relevant websites.

Jim

[magicalwonders]

I came across this site when searching for Blog software.

http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

It takes the slog out of research!

Hope it's of use.


Myles

[golles]

Or use RSS to provide a data feed to affiliates??

Golly