Your SteemIt RSS Feed URL Is A Goldmine! Use It!! (I'll Show You Ho...

Your RSS Feed is the most powerful asset you have when it comes to getting the word out about your SteemIt posts. There are numerous ways you can use it to your advantage.

I'm posting this article under the 'steemitzombies' tag, because I think this information from an old post of mine - which I posted on my old account - can be very useful for other Steemians who want to expand their post reach.

#steemitzombies is an initiative that aims to resurrect posts from the past, that went pretty much unnoticed, even though they were (more than) decent.
You can find more information on the SteemItZombies initiative in this post by @watamidoing

The original article (link here) was written when I still had my old account (@mike314-00005). In January 2018 I decided to start over with a new account. I feel it is a shame that the useful tips on that old account don't get any attention, while many users would be able to profit from them.

The original article was posted 4 months ago on my @mike314-0005 account. It gathered 38 votes and reached a post-payout of $3.91.

I updated parts of the content to make the information actual again.

No Cryptocurrencies Yesterday

After taking a look at my portfolio stats yesterday morning, I decided it would be the perfect day to put my focus on something else instead of cryptocurrency. So I did, and I ended up playing around with my SteemIt RSS feed URL. There's a lot of potential in this RSS Feed URL when it comes to generating more traffic to your SteemIt posts. And since more traffic often equals more upvotes, I thought it couldn't hurt to try out a couple of things.

What Is An RSS Feed URL?

In case you don't know, RSS stands for 'really simple syndication', or is also used for “rich site summary”. It is basically a sort of text file that is automatically updated with stripped-down content (for faster loading) whenever you make a new blog post.

How To Create And Optimize Your SteemIt Feed URL?

(This paragraph has been edited, because Streemian isn't the way to go anymore/)

Don't worry! It may look like it's a complicated thing and a lot of work, but in reality it is not.

Below you'll find a video that will walk you through the process.

To create your feed URL, you need a service like FetchRSS.
A membership is free for the first three URLs you create, but you only need one.
Once you've registered for your free account, sign in. Click on 'MANUAL RSS BUILDER' and enter the URL of your SteemIt blog page into the field.
You will be asked to identify the contents of your blog page, like for example the title, the description, the image etc.
(You can see what to do in the video below). The parts you really need to set are News Item, Headline, Summary and Illustration. The link is detected on autopilot.

^{Click To Enlarge Image}

Once you're done, click 'Generate RSS'. You now have your basic feed URL.

To spice up this feed URL and add some extra functionalities to it, you can run it through Feedburner.
I know Feedburner is an old-school tool, but I couldn't find another one that had the same features and was free.

I'm not going to go through the Feedburner process in this post, but I will probably make a separate post about it soon.
You can follow the steps you need to take to set up your Feedburner URL in the video below.

How To Use Your RSS Feed URL?

Like I said before, your RSS feed URL is like a magic tool when it comes to generating traffic.

There are numerous ways to use your RSS feed URL. I've listed some below.

(I won't go deeper into all possibilities today, because I simply don't have enough time at the moment. I will explain everything in further detail in my future posts.)

With your RSS feed URL you can...

allow people to subscribe to your SteemIt blog so they will receive a notification when you make a new post.
(People can subscribe using feed reader services like Feedly or Inoreader. I've chosen to use the very old-fashioned Feed Burner to give people multiple subscription options. As you can see, Feedburner also offers subscription by email.)

I'll show you how to set up your RSS feed in Feedburner in one of my next posts.
Meanwhile, you can subscribe to receive my RSS feed updates here.

set up a newsletter that broadcasts new posts on autopilot.
I've been testing that out using MailChimp, which is free to up to 2000 subscribers. My setup is not perfect yet, but you can already subscribe to receive new updates in your mailbox by clicking the button below.

add a widget to your website that is showing your latest posts
add an entire page to your blog that automatically updates when you make a new post
set up an autoblog and attract more readers
send push notifications to subscribers
add an auto-updating news box to for example Hubpages
submit your feed to RSS directories for more traffic
use it for SEO - spread your feed to create backlinks

All these features can help you to generate more traffic to your posts. And by getting more views, you increase the chance that people will start following you. And when you have more followers, you usually get more upvotes. And more upvotes... you get the picture, right?

By using a service like IFTTT and Zapier, your options become almost unlimited.
For more information on how to use IFTTT, read my post 'Get Your SteemIt Posts To Reach More People On Autopilot And Earn!'

These services allow you to:

share your posts on your social media accounts on autopilot
schedule reshares of your posts on your social media accounts
add links to your new posts to multiple social bookmarking sites
add your new blog posts to loads of other applications like Google Calendar or Dropbox,...
save your blog posts in Google Drive of Google Sheets so you'll never lose them

And loads more...

Again, you'll find more info on the use of IFTTT in a post on my old account: 'Get Your SteemIt Posts To Reach More People On Autopilot And Earn!'

Now, I'm going to give you the chance to create your own RSS Feed URL. I don't want to risk an information overload...

I'll be back with more information soon.