We have just updated the rss feeds across the site to include a link to the authors profile page… This link only appears if you have activated your profile page.

All feeds are 100% W3C valid and syndicate perfectly now. Before this update, we had a minor problem with text encoding. Hyphen would appear as &ndash, quotes would appear &lquot or $rquot and apostrophe would appear  as &apos in the feed reader. Fixing this little thing in the feeds could make a big difference.

Most people who are used to using feed readers are used to seeing this problem and forgive it (it happens a lot) but still, that does not stop the feed from looking less than professional. The problem is even worse when syndicating articles to a blog.

Take a look at this simple web design blog which  I just set up to demonstrate syndicating articles from the web design category to a web design blog. You’ll notice that all the excerpts look perfect now.

You’ll also notice that NONE of the authors that I have syndicated here have an active link to their profile page. That is because they have not logged in and activated their profile page in the members area.

It’s really worth logging in and completing your profile page.

The Web design blog does not look too great yet anyway, but imagine if every ” ‘ ! ? / – or & used in the article snippet was encoded badly. How bad would this (s)blog look then?

Example…

Though just about anybody can create a web page using some of the software tools available in today&aposs marketplace &ndash software that will generate your web pages and their &lquotdesign&rqout for you &ndash there is a large difference

It looks awful doesn’t it?

A lot of people like to use targeted RSS feeds to supplement their blog content, not only does doing this provide more value for the reader (as long as it is a good feed), it also brings more traffic. If you know what you are doing, it’s hard not to get traffic to every blog post you ever make at an active blog, whether syndicated content or not. Some days you just do not have time to write something yourself. Before now, using Article Content King feeds in this way was not really an option before now.

Our feeds already get a lot of traffic (around 50% of site traffic is feed traffic according to Awstats). This improvement should bring even more feed traffic as people who wish to syndicate our articles to their blog can now safely do so without compromising the look of their site. People who have been put off by bad text encoding in their feed reader will not be put off any more. Fixing this little thing could make a big difference.

If your profile page is active, some of that traffic could end up at your site!

Important Read This (new rule in the King contest)

When you activate your profile page, we want you to use an image! There are too many “No Profile Image” images on the top author page. It’s good to see more faces appearing every day, but not enough authors are uploading a pic or really using their profile page to full advantage.

It makes the site a look a lot more user friendly when you add an image. The no-profile image makes it look less user friendly. So please, add an image. Let people know what you look like. You’ll have more chance of finding a friend if you do.

I’m serious about this… so serious that I am making a new rule in the king contest!

New Rule in the King Contest — Unless you have uploaded a photo of yourself, you cannot win a prize!

Also, it’s highly recommended that you add a link to your twitter profile on your profile page in the “widgets” section. If you add a link to your Twitter profile, I can easily send you a message to you (and my 14,000 followers) when you move up the rankings or if you win a prize. If I tweet @you all my followers see it (and my Facebook friends too). This could be a lot of friendly traffic for you.

More views to your profile page, means more potential views to your articles. Article views increase article score and accumulative article score is what decides the winners of the King and Prince contests. Just the fact that I can “Tweet” well done to you, could be the difference between winning a prize and not. So you’d be wise to add a Twitter button, feed or link to your profile page.

What are you going to do next?

Unlock this extra traffic or not?

You can log in here

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Article Content King News, Authors Interest, Publisher Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.