Online Marketing Glossary: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feed
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds:
- A data format for syndicating news and other content. Subscribers to RSS feeds are notified every time content is updated on a particular site.
RSS feeds are a MUST for bloggers because it saves your readers from necessarily having to come to you all the time. Bringing the blog to their inbox or feed reader will make it easier for them to consume your content.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
A Happy Blog Birthday to Me!
In my hustle and bustle lately, I neglected to realize that I’ve been blogging “semi-pro” as I refer to it for a full year. I went back to see some of my earlier posts from last August and was reminded of this one – Hats, Hats, Everywhere! Could it be that it was just a year ago that I was still managing PsPrint’s mailing services? It’s also sad to say that I was “in charge of” social media marketing – a project that never took off on the company level, but I’ve obviously been running strong with it.
It feels like it’s been much longer than just a year that I’ve been at this, but I have to say that I’ve learned so much in a year that it’s incredible. In many ways this blog as served as a gateway to that knowledge and opportunities that I’ve been given. I’ll never be able to thank this little blog enough lol.
I wish I’d discovered Google Analytics sooner so I don’t have complete data, but thank you to the 16,000+ visitors this year that stopped by. Thanks for spending those few minutes to check out what I’ve been spewing out there into the webverse. I hope you’ve come by more than once. Told your friends. Subscribed despite my trials and tribulations in getting a freakin’ feed to work properly. And come by despite going through three URL changes…
Stay Classy, Interwebs.
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Tradeshow Madness
Is there really a “trade show season”? I’ve heard this referred to time & again, but I seem to go year ’round so I don’t know what that season is! Yes, soon it will be time for me to hit the road again and make my rounds of the country in search of truth, justice, and the American Business Way!
Actually, both of the conferences in my future take me to Boston, MA. I’m hoping since it’s on the coast that it won’t be as muggy and terrible as when I visited New Jersey in 2006 for a film festival. That was awful. I’ve never been to Boston, so I’m excited. This next trip is quick and won’t allow for a lot of time to see any sights except in the evenings, but for the second show I’ve worked a day or so in to see some stuff.
Boston, MA
First stop, the HOW Design Conference May 18th through 21st. I’m on booth duty the entire time, so no sessions for me. Which makes me sad, but I’m relying on a co-worker that is attending the sessions to take good notes because I’m sure it’ll be interesting. In a geeky designer way. In booking this trip, it was pretty last minute for the company to make up it’s mind in who would be sent, so costs were pretty expensive. I managed to get one hell of a deal on a flight for $380 on Hotwire, a feat which seems to not be repeatable as looking for the flight for my second outing only returned prices in the $420-460 range. Since it was also the last minute and there has GOT to be some other conferences or events going on the same week, almost every decent hotel in the area was booked solid or $500/night. So we’re staying at the Best Western near Longview Medical for $300/night. Never have I stayed in such a poorly valued Best Western – but we’ll see.
Next on my list, the always great Affiliate Summit. I won’t be attending this as a representative of PsPrint. This is on my own dime. I’ll be going as a member of the press, and will be reporting live (hopefully) on the sessions I attend and the different events I go to. I’m stoked, and BIG Shout Out to Missy Ward, one of the co-founders, for helping make this happen for me. I’ve booked my hotel already, luckily getting on on super fair group rate of $189/night at the Seaport Hotel where the event will be happening. As I mentioned above, I tried to get a great deal on a flight booking 3 months in advance, but still only got higher…so I’ll watch the fares for awhile and see what I can do to swing a cheaper flight. I’ve built a day into my schedule out there to HOPEFULLY see some cool Boston stuff…maybe if I win the lottery I can go to a Red Sox game at Fenway! I’m really excited and can’t wait.
And BEST news of all, the wonderful Scott Jangro found out the problem I was having with the RSS feed – Revver & PodPress were just not playing nicely together. It has been fixed so PLEASE remember to subscribe to my RSS feed!
Be sure to share some travel tips with me!
Read MoreChanges A-Foot
Frequent visitors here to TrishaLyn.com will notice that the design has changed, among other things. I haven’t updated in awhile because I’m trying to fix the issues first. This is all in an attempt to NOT corrupt my source feed.
As with all budding bloggers, I’ve screwed the pooch a bit and now having to fix what I broke. Apparently a combination of “Pretty Permalinks” structure and my old theme are killing my RSS feed for some reason. Whenever I change the permalink structure the source feed dies and I get an XML not well parsed message.
So I admit that I’m at a loss and don’t know how to fix this without going back to the ugly default permalink structure. And that also kills all the links that are out there & doesn’t sync previous Disqus comments to their posts, so I really do NEED to go back to the pretty permalinks… but how do I do that without losing the feed?
I’m working on it… if you have suggestions, throw them at me PLEASE. I’ll, of course, share the solution once I find it. I’m not giving up!
I’m getting some help from a heavy hitter in the blogosphere/affiliate marketing world… so let’s all hope this works out. By the by, I changed the design because I thought it was my old theme that was mucking things up, but I actually really like this new theme. Professional but still “me”. Meh anyway… HELP 😛
Read MoreGood People Day
So Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibrary is at it again, enthusiastically making up holidays as he fancies. He’s come up with April 3rd as Good People Day, a day to thank those that help you, inspire you, etc. He explains it better than I, so here:
So I’m left to wondering who I should thank. I guess there’s several peeps out there that inspire me. Here we go, in no particular order.
- Anne Casanova, my manager. She’s awesome!
- Sam Harrelson. A great blogger, generally nice and helpful guy.
- All the people I follow on twitter for constant entertainment.
- All the people who read my blog. Y’all rock and give me a good motivation to keep talking.
- The GeekCast crew for making me laugh hysterically once a week, so big ups to Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, and Sam Harrelson once again.
- My best friends ever for always being there for me, Katie Shaw, Lorenza Martinez, Rachel Nuckols, and Jennifer Morrill. None of them are big interwebbers, so no links!
- Karen Garcia is a great for random questions via Twitter. So is Deborah Loxly!
A Thorn in My Side
By all accounts, I was certain that moving my blog over to WordPress and onto my own domain was the right thing to do. Many (if not all) online marketers lately are preaching the personal branding… so what better than to move it over, right?
I’ve noticed since the move that my RSS subscriber numbers have dramatically dropped. At first I thought that this was just FeedBurner asleep at the wheel again, but now I’m not so sure. Google Analytics shows a pretty significant drop in visitors as well, but I see today that it’s actually picking back up a bit. My Entrecard point price for an ad has gone from in the 50s range down to 18 today.
In the words of Grant Wilson, what the frig? I’m still writing the same content, if not better with the random addition of videos. Is this just a curve that will pick back up again once people get acclimated to the new site? I can’t imagine that the design is affecting subscribers since they never have to see the design, or visitors since they don’t see the design until they get here. The average time visitors spend on the site is slowing moving up, so I don’t think the design is a factor.
Am I missing the obvious? I’ve received good feedback from some people in the industry that I really respect. I respect their opinions based on my interactions with them via social media and also based on their reputations and the collection of work they’ve amassed in the blogosphere and online marketing. So what gives?
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