Tool 5: Syndication

What:
Email news delivery
RSS
Widgets

Why:
In the Web 2.0 world, no longer can you assume that your readers will always come to you -- sometimes, you have to go to them. In addition to reaching out via social media, there are ways to “syndicate” your content and push your stories to your readers where ever they may be: On email, on their RSS readers or on other sites.

Here are some free tools for those three realms:

1. Email News
Email is the new homepage. Often the first stop when a person opens a computer, the email inbox is a great place for your headlines to be. Whether delivery is once a week, once a month or once a day, connecting with your readers via their email can create a lasting relationship.

Our favorite system for distributing email news is Constant Contact. It isn’t free, but its affordable (plans start at $15 a month). It’s also easy to use and is great for actually tracking your emails from send to open to click. You can create your own email layout, or use one of the many templates Constant Contact provides. Managing your email lists is easy and adding a signup box on your Web site for your emails is a snap.

www.constantcontact.com

2. RSS
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a technology that allows you to create a “feed” from your Web site that can then be be distributed across the Web. Most people read RSS feeds via a “reader” or aggregator. Our favorite at the moment is the Web-base Google Reader, on which you can subscribe to feeds and have the headlines of all your favorite news sources delivered to you on one page.

Allowing your readers to subscribe to your Web site is a must and anymore, creating an RSS feed is fairly simple. First, make sure your site is RSS friendly (most modern content management systems are). If it is, people can already subscribe. However, “burning” a feed and distributing it is easy as pie with a free online program called FeedBurner.

On FeedBurner, you can create, publicize and even monetize (!) your feed in a matter of minutes.

www.feedburner.com

3. Widgets
Widgets are quite simply, a way to package your content (often through RSS feeds) for publication on other Web sites. They’re also a great way to incorporate others’ content on your Web site. A simple widget will take an RSS feed and stylize it and make it easy to embed.

Here's an example:



With Widgetbox, you can create widgets for free, design them very easily and embed them in a snap.

www.widgetbox.com