We get asked a lot of things, recently, another industry professional asked us if RSS (real simple syndicated) content helps search engine rankings. We thought we would make a blog post out of this since it is something that we have been asked before, and is likely to be asked again. We’re a Vancouver internet marketing firm and explain it all below. If you are a service provider, are a business owner or are just curious this article is for you.

So What is Syndicated Content? – RSS / Rich Site Summary / Real Simple Syndication

Let’s first address what syndicated content is. Most people are familiar with the term RSS, which means really simple syndicated or rich site summary. Quite often this type of content is used in order to place feeds on other websites. It is a common thought that syndicated content will help you rank for keywords. Search engines want to see original content, however there is a slight chance (with the help of an SEO) that RSS feeds could influence rankings – but only slightly. Here are some quick facts about RSS feeds with fresh content (fresh content is key for this list below):

• Can increase your website traffic as people will go to your website and see your feed as a source of new information
• Can increase your time on site as people will spend time reading through all of the interesting things in your feed
• Can help you get indexed faster as search engines know the source of the feed and will crawl sites that also have the feed
• Search engines don’t crawl RSS content, just detect there is a feed. For this reason you need original content on your feed pages, otherwise your webpages may seem like soft 404s, which aren’t counted for rankings. Soft 404s are basically pages with little or no content, like placeholder pages. It is best to make every page count and make sure you have original content on each page.
• Search engines see RSS feeds as containing fresh content, which they love
• Aggregated RSS feeds (a feed of several feeds joined into one) contain keywords and can help you rank if your original content is relevant on the webpage and throughout your site. This is based on semantic keywords.

Integrate Original Content into Your RSS Content With an SEO and Content Strategy

If you do want to have syndicated content on your website then you also need to add in some original, topical content. Your rankings will come from your original content, not your RSS content. There are many ways you can integrate in your original content. It is best to seek out a professional SEO Specialist who can help you with an SEO strategy, content strategy, website structure, create website content for pages with real site summary feeds as well as other webpages so that there is a nice balance.

Contact Us for More Information About RSS SEO (Syndicated Content and Search Engine Rankings) – Vancouver Internet Marketing Firm

We’re an internet marketing firm in Vancouver and are here to help. If you would like more information about RSS SEO, how / if syndicated content helps search engine rankings, you can contact us via email, by phone at 604-779-8438 or chat with us online right now. If you are ready to get started click on the free quote button below. We look forward to hearing from you! 😀