So, we haven't posted for a couple of days. The main reason is we've been too busy kicking ourselves for succumbing to the temptation of easy syndication, easy stats and drag and drop bookmarking buttons we could add to our feed without overexerting ourselves. If you are wondering what all the fuss is about, it's pretty simple - we let feedburner hijack our feed and are now backtracking to try and get it back.
The first few weeks of our love affair with feedburner was all champagne and roses.
Readership numbers rising, services being pinged automatically - how wonderful. But then the unimaginable happened... feedburner somehow managed to hijack our feed. If anyone clicked on the link back to the website from within their reader, feedburner somehow managed to redirect them to the wrong url - an article hosted on feeds.feedburner.com instead of Rak-Wholesale.com.
Not a complete disaster, only problem is - we have no way of fixing this, since we cannot edit the xml file, and we can't get our readers back since they are all owned by feedburner now - thanks to our laziness...
But this isn't the only problem we were experiencing with feedburner.
Since one of the main reasons we opted for this Google service to begin with was the fact that they promised to serve adsense ads within feeds, but as you all might have noticed possibly from your own experience - this does not happen. As a result, we researched into alternate ways to serve ads withing feed posts. Apparently this isn't an easy task either. If you try to implement the services mentioned in a previous post (monetize your feed) you will be faced with similar issues - feedflare all but crashing your reader and scripts you cannot implement because - again - you have limited control over the output unless you resort to hacking your core php files - something we just assume not attempt.
In any case, if you are thinking about using feedburner for your syndication, and the above reasons didn't make you rethink your decision, you might want to read a very important post which explains why you should keep control of your readers, and how you could still benefit from feedburner's statistics without relinquishing all control.
In the next couple of days we will be backtracking, hacking and reclaiming control of our hard earned feed and subscribers. We strongly suggest you rethink your syndication and subscription options and keep your valuable readers your own. You earned it - no reason to give them away.
And again - the url of our site is www.Rak-Wholesale.com - NOT feeds.feedburner.com.
We are currently experiencing technical issues with Feedburner parsing our feeds.
We have opted to republish our feeds with feedburner in order to take advantage of their multi platform/multi reader support and enhanced statistics. However, for some reason, the last couple of days, if you tried to click through to our articles from your rss reader, you were pointed to our article on feedburner.com instead of our domain: Rak-Wholesale.com.
We are trying to work out the kinks. (if you use feedburner to publish your feeds, you've probably also noticed that since Google has purchased Feedburner, there have been more and more problems popping up and less solutions)
In any case, if you would like to click through to the article on our site, then you will need to manually replace "feeds.feedburner.com" with "www.rak-wholesale.com"
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and are working at fixing the issue.
As a last resort, we might forego this service altogether, since the original feed works just fine - unfortunately, this would mean that all our subscribers would have to change the feed address and re-subscribe - and we would like to avoid that.
If you publish your feed through feedburner, you might want to validate your links and your feed's health. Note though, that when we use the feedmedic feature on feedburner, no issues are reported - so you might want to do this manually....
Likewise, if you know of a workaround or solution to this issue - we would be very happy to hear from you!
If you offer a syndicated feed to your readers, you've probably battled the question of whether to offer full posts in your feeds or whether you should just offer excerpts and hope to get interested visitors to click on the headlines to read the full articles on your site.
The benefit of having the readers click back to your site is obvious - more ad impressions, more hits, maybe more page click throughs to other content the visitor might find interesting. The bottom line - a possibility of more earnings for your site.
The temptation to keep your feeds limited to the first paragraph or so is huge. However, many avid feed readers have all but removed these subscriptions from their RSS readers. Why? Well, subscribing to an RSS feed is a way for avid readers to stay up do date with their favorite sites and see real time updates without having to visit each site separately. These people are usually short on time and short on patience, and when faced with a tease paragraph, might just balk at the notion and not even bother to click through to read the full article, as they might feel it defeats the whole purpose of subscribing to get the latest news in their favorite reader.
On the other hand, dedicated fans of your site, will most likely click through to read your new content regardless of whether you offer a full feed or not.
If you are an active Entrecard dropper, you might have noticed an annoying ad that's been popping up all over the blogosphere... I'd like to call it the fake entrecard "Z" monster (a useless waste of time website whose owners think tricking people into visiting will actually make them stay longer than it takes to hit the close button). Now This is an ad that is made to look like an entrecard spot where you can drop your card while visiting other blogs. But no, it's a sorry attempt at getting unsuspecting folks to click through to the advertiser's website. I have to admit, I fell for this one a few time trying to drop my card. In my defense, some of the blogs that feature this dumb ad, have it appear higher on the page than the actual entrecard widget, and the "Z" monster is spreading like wild fire. You would think this site at the very least has an entrecard widget - but no.
Here are just a few examples of the blogs that feature this tricky sponsor (blogs kept anonymous to protect the owners - but you know who you are) Can you spot the fake?
Still not getting enough traffic to your site? Want to find more RSS, Blog, Search Engines, Article Directories and Site Directories to shout your site to? Here is a roundup of all the lists we've compiled:
Free Stock Photos and Images as a Way to Dress Up Your Articles
As part of my daily routine, I regularly visit other blogs and browse through interesting posts, both for business and pleasure. What often strikes me as puzzling, is the lack of visual stimuli that often makes an otherwise great blog unattractive and uninviting. Think about it - your favorite e-zines and news portals all headline their best content with some image or photo to attract the eye and invite more readers and click-throughs. Good photos may help you 'sell' your visitors to read an otherwise hard to 'sell' article.
Lets face it, we are all visual beings and giving your visitors that 'eye candy', is an important part of designing a better user experience.
You don't need to have images of business meetings for your business articles, computer images for your technology posts, etc. Think in broad terms and try to convey a general concept or idea.
The image on the right is an example of how to convey a thought or concept that may otherwise seem unrelated to the topic. (blank page + eye candy..)
Combating Writer's Block
An added benefit to having a great repository of quality stock photos is aiding that dreaded writer's block syndrome. If you are trying to write a new article or blog entry and facing a blank page, I encourage you to try a little experiment:
If you are fresh out of ideas on where to submit your articles, we have a little tip for you.
NPR: National Publc Radio encourages commentary and essay submissions on a variety of topics, including international news, science, health, business, media, sports, education, the arts, and entertainment.
Of course, unlike submitting to article submission directories, there is no guarantee that you story will make the cut, but if you have one that's a real winner, or are willing to put in the effort to produce a thought provoking and original well written commentary or essay, you might just make it to the news desk.
The publicity and bragging rights you will earn if your article is published would definitely be worth the effort.
NPR requires that the article be submitted via e-mail, and be approximately 450 words (or take about 2 and a half minutes to read out loud)
If you would like to learn more about submitting your commentary for consideration, visit Suggesting Commentaries to NPR.
Don't Miss a Story!
If you offer a syndicated feed to your readers, you've probably battled the question of whether to offer full posts in your feeds or whether you should just offer excerpts and hope to get interested visitors to click on the headlines to read the full articles on your site.
Free Stock Photos and Images as a Way to Dress Up Your Articles