NY Times now offers RSS feeds, your law firm can do via a Blog
The NY Times now offers its news via RSS feeds. Readers can subscribe by section of the paper so if you only want Tech, get that – not sports etc. Here’s the link for NY Times RSS feeds. This so cool for a couple reasons. One I do not need to subscribe to the NY Times news offerings via email. Second, the more providers who offer their Web site information via RSS, the more law firms understand the need to distribute their news and info via RSS.
The NY Times, like few traditional publishers, has done a fabulous job in using the Internet to increase ad sales, build on their brand as the nation’s source of news, and to get more subscribers for home delivery of the paper.
First they had a great Web site offering all of their content for free (National Law Journal/law.com & Lawyers Weekly could learn something). With the free site people saw the quality & breadth of news on all subjects, no matter whether they lived in Topeka or Portland – the brand was being enhanced.
The Times then offered a daily email service that could be subscribed to for free where one could check a box next to the type of news they wanted delivered by email. The email came in a low graphic, but nice presentation, with a headline and short blurb which when clicked on takes the reader to the article on the Times’ Web site. The news was so good, I felt bad if I did not keep up with their emails.
With the site and email feeds, people all across the country saw the value in getting the entire edition delivered to their office or home. The Times got more new subscribers.
Now with RSS, readers will get the Times’ headlines and short excerpts delivered to their newsreeders on their desktop or any other Internet device.
The Times knows RSS is the way the world is going on the delivery and receipt of info. The Times knows email alerts are obtrusive and do get through many firewalls and spam guards. Finally the Times knows getting news via RSS is just easier than a Web site or email for readers to follow the news.
Your law firm’s articles, client alerts and white papers published on your Web sites and distributed via email newsletters need to be offered through RSS. It is not a rip and replace, keeping the content on the site and in email alerts is fine. But as better service to their clients and other readers, to enhance your brand and to make certain people are even seeing your valuable content, you need to offer RSS now, not later.
Law firm blogs broken down by area of the law or practice group are the answer. Blogs have RSS built right in. Writing script (computer programming) to distribute portions of law firm Web sites via RSS would cost a ton of money. Plus getting your firm’s IT department involved in what is essentially a marketing and communications job, is not an efficient use of anyone’s time.
Law blogs are easy to set up and design by folks with the experience and cost peanuts compared to Web development and other computer programming. All that’s then required is to cut and paste the already existing content into the blog. It takes minutes.
The benefits to your law firm using RSS for such content:
- Content will be better indexed and receive higher search engine rankings
- Clients and media already using RSS will now receive info
- Don’t rely on email alerts and newsletters that never get through spam guards
- Will have RSS in place and be better source of info before competitors
- No IT department involvement
- Cost is very minimal
The more places like the NY Times offer RSS, the more lawyers and law firm marketing directors see RSS and use RSS to receive news and information. That way when I talk with you by phone or in meetings and I tell you about the need for RSS you won’t look at me like I have two heads.