Whether RSS will ever replace email is open to debate. However, this technology is still an important way to reach people, especially if your RSS feeds are displayed on other people’s websites. For webmasters, the more distribution channels used, the better.

RSS is an XML based application. XML is simply a type of programming language that is used in syndicated content. To use the power of RSS, webmasters have to create an XML feed so that the RSS readers (and websites) can display the content. This is important to note for HTML publishers, as RSS readers cannot read HTML files.

There are 4 basic steps to syndicating your content via RSS. The first thing you need to do is to create the feed. You can do this manually, but there are a lot of RSS writers out there that are either free, or low cost. Tristana has a good writer, and it doesn’t cost much. They also have a free trial.

You can create an RSS feed by hand, but be sure to check the code when you’re done! You can see an example of what an RSS feed will look like here. There are instructions for creating your own RSS feed here.

You’ll generally need about 10 articles for your feed. Even though you won’t be publishing the articles themselves, you’ll be printing summaries of them, as well as a link back to where the actual article is.

Once you’ve created your feed, save it either as an XML, RSS, or RDF file. These are the different types of files that can be syndicated. Then, simply upload it using an FTP program to your web server.

Once it’s on your server, you should validate your feed. If you’re using an RSS writer, this step is probably taken care of already. The validation makes sure there aren’t any missed tags, or unclosed or out of order tags.

You should place an icon on your website so that people may subscribe to your feed, as well as submit your feed to the RSS directories. Don’t forget to add your feeds to your own MyYahoo, and MyMSN.