Make It Easy and They Will Come: Perfecting the RSS User Experience

If your first taste of RSS was typical, then curiosity probably got you to click a small orange button labeled “RSS/XML” after which you were directed to a seemingly broken Web page displaying indecipherable text, or raw XML code. Without time to investigate further, you likely hit the “Back” button, cut your losses, and continued on your way.

By this point, you’ve probably had time to wrangle through the RSS subscription process multiple times and experimenting with different feed readers. Still, not everyone has gotten that far.

Marketers considering integrating RSS into their mix need to remember that there are still many online users who haven’t cracked the RSS code yet. In fact, only nine percent of those interviewed in a survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Project indicated they had a good grasp of what RSS feeds are, and 26% had never heard the term.

If the usability of your RSS implementation is poor, you’re losing a growing audience. According to Jupiter Research, consumption of blog and RSS-facilitated content increases at a faster rate than opt-in e-mail promotions did several years ago. The integration of RSS features into the most recent updates of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Outlook is also expected to kinder the RSS fire. Now is the time for marketers to perfect the user experience of their RSS efforts in order to take advantage of this increasingly popular communication channel.

How can you help your audience overcome RSS technical hurdles, and in the process encourage greater consumption of your feeds and increase subscriber retention? Read on.

Attract More Subscribers
Attracting subscribers requires more effort than adding an orange “RSS/XML” button to your site. Here are several ways promote RSS effectively:

* Stop calling it “RSS”. Label your RSS call-to-action in non-technical language that users understand. Examples of good call-to-action labels include “Subscribe to News Feed” or “Receive News Updates.”

* Sell the benefits of RSS. Complement your RSS call-to-action with a brief description of how RSS can benefit users. For example, “Feed subscribers no longer need to keep checking our Web site for the latest product news.”

* Highlight RSS on all pages. Simply placing an RSS link in the page footer is not enough. RSS must be prominently promoted everywhere on the site, especially the home page and any other page with frequent content updates.

* Spread the word. Notify e-mail subscribers about your feed. Also, submit your feed to specialized feed search engines like FeedBurner.

Simplify the Subscription Process
The best opportunity for you to increase consumption of your feeds is to simplify the subscription process by creating a “Subscription Preferences” page where users are directed after clicking call-to-action links. A well designed “Subscription Preferences” page should:

* Communicate the benefits of subscribing. Most users aren’t familiar with the benefits of RSS compared to other Internet messaging channels, like e-mail. It’s your job to make a compelling case for RSS in an easy to understand format.

* Educate users about RSS technology. Provide a brief, non-technical description of how RSS works. Make sure to include an overview of RSS readers and how to add feeds to them. Users should come away believing RSS is as simple as e-mail sign-up.

* Provide links to RSS readers. Because this is probably the first time people have attempted to subscribe to a feed, you’ll need to provide links to the tools that are required to view them. Include links to both Web-based and desktop RSS readers.

Retain Your Subscribers
Although RSS is a relatively new technology, subscriber retention best practices have emerged:

* Include your company or product name in the title of your feed so that it is easily identified when displayed in an RSS reader. You want to avoid subscriber confusion when they open up a reader and attempt to find your information.

* Write a brief but highly informative subject line. The subject line of your feed is likely competing with many others when displayed in an RSS reader. For some, the subject line may be all that is ever seen.

* Send the full text of an article in a feed. Resist the temptation of limiting your feed to a summary with hopes of driving traffic back to your site. Subscribers prefer to stay in their RSS reader environment as that is a primary benefit of RSS.

* Segment content into separate feeds. You want to avoid information overload by providing users relevant information specific to their unique interests. The more targeted your information the better chance of maintaining loyal subscribers.

* Avoid prolonged gaps in your feed publishing schedule. Just like a blog, people will lose interest if you don’t stay current with content updates.

* Measure campaign performance and optimize feed content. Through “Individualized RSS” (IRSS) marketers are able to measure and analyze feed consumption enabling tracking at the individual level.

Addressing issues that adversely affect user experience is imperative towards increasing user adoption and success of your RSS implementation efforts. When users understand the benefits of RSS and aren’t hindered by a confusing subscription process they are likely to become loyal subscribers making RSS a valuable channel in your interactive marketing mix.

Charles Wiedenhoft is director of user experience at Red Door Interactive.