Lucky for you, you have landed at the right article as in this blog, I will be educating you about how to be a smart blogger. I bet you’d agree with me when I say that unless you have a high Domain Authority, bringing traffic to your newly released blogs is challenging. Many SEO experts believe that blogs with low DA require at least 90 days to start ranking and also start attracting traffic. Do you want to wait for 3 months? I guess not… Hence, today, you will learn how to exponentially increase blog traffic by automatically sending your latest blog posts to your subscribers as emails. This is possible with the help of RSS to email features available in many email marketing services. But have you noticed the word “automatically” in the above sentence? That’s right, with the help of this feature, all you have to do is set up your RSS to email newsletter campaign once and the rest is automatically taken care of by the email service. Isn’t this exciting? So without wasting any more time, let’s start learning how to configure and send RSS as email. But before that, let’s learn some basics such as –
What Is RSS?
RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication which is usually a web feed. With the help of this, your subscribers and readers get instant notification about the release of new posts, stories, etc on your or any website. If you have a website or a blog, you certainly have an RSS feed for it. Also, it works exceptionally well for news-based websites, current-affairs, etc. Although being a website owner, you should know that RSS feed requires external 3rd party feed reader applications like Feedly, Feedreader, Feeder, etc. so that your readers can subscribe to your feeds.
What Is RSS To Email?
Now, when we talk about the RSS in email functionality, the core idea remains the same, i.e. to notify and provide the latest blog posts to your subscribers. But unlike conventional RSS, the RSS by email feature provides this notification with the help of an email. Mind you, you also have the flexibility of including short excerpts of your posts in this email too. As I have said earlier, with the recent technological development in blogging as well as the email marketing sector, this feature becomes fully automated after the one-time setup process. At this point in this article, are you having an itch in your brain that says – Why do you even need this feature in the first place? Well, hold your horses, as I am going to list the benefits of RSS in email feature –
Why Do You Need RSS to Email Feature?
In the first instance, I believe that this feature may seem unnecessary for you. You could, of course, manually draft and send an email newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis. But tell me, don’t you think that you already have a burden of coming up with new blog topics, drafting & publishing them, promoting them on social media, making backlinks, etc.? Don’t you think that it would be wise to opt for an automated process that sends your blogs as emails to generate healthy traffic? Well, this is what RSS as email features does…
What Are Its Benefits?
It is the best automated way to provide content and resources to your subscribers. And, eventually, this results in blog traffic.Sending email campaigns with the latest articles, posts, etc. could embark a long-term relationship with your subscribers.As said earlier, all the heavy-lifting such as email drafting and sending is automatically handled by the email service.Since this campaign is managed by professional email service, you are provided with all the stats to measure its performance.All the email services that offer this feature provides you the flexibility to customize your RSS to email newsletter to match your brand.
With that being said, it’s time for us to choose the best email marketing service that offers RSS as email feature. Yes, most of the bulk emailing services indeed have this feature in them. But which service offers the best amenities with it? You don’t have to ponder over this question as I am going to point you straight to it – Sendinblue RSS to email feature. Allow me to prove to you –
What Makes Sendinblue The Best Service For RSS To Email Feature?
First of all, I am using Sendinblue for over a year now and I have been extremely satisfied with it. After the recent integration of Sendinblue with the RSS Campaign, it has opened a new door of traffic for me. Apart from this, it provides an extensive set of features that work exceptionally well with the RSS – email feature –
The set up process is extremely easy and requires only a one-time configuration.Upon successful configuration, Sendinblue will automatically read your RSS feed, draft an email newsletter and send it as per your settings.Sendinblue also provides an RSS email template that can be customized to match your brand.You will have the flexibility to choose your subscribers list that will receive your RSS email campaigns.It also provides a set of RSS tags that can be used to dynamically populate your email newsletter template.This email marketing service enables you to either schedule your campaigns on a fixed basis or send it as soon as a new blog is published.Lastly, a detailed reporting section is provided to you so that you can analyze the performance of your campaigns.
In addition to these, one of the greatest characteristics of Sendinblue is its inexpensive subscription plans. You can start sending 40,000 emails at a rate of $25/month. Or you can sign up on the forever free plan and send 300 emails per day. Either way, free or premium plans, both allow you to send RSS to email newsletter. Now, we have reached the point where you would learn how to integrate & configure Sendinblue RSS to email feature and leverage traffic for your blog.
Integrating RSS In Email With Sendinblue – Step By Step Guide
I hope you have signed up and created an account on Sendinblue by clicking the above-mentioned button. After signing up, you will be required to complete basic profile settings such as name, address, etc. Also, you must add and configure your domain address. And, don’t forget to add your subscribers’ list. Once done, you will have complete access to the Sendinblue dashboard.
1. Integrating Sendinblue With RSS Campaign
The first step to start this automated process is to integrate your Sendinblue account with the RSS campaign. For this, you will have to click the [+] icon available on the menu bar of your Sendinblue Dashboard. By clicking it, you will have access to the Apps & Integration section. In this section, you must click the Integration tab. Once the Integration tab opens, you should be able to find the RSS Campaigns module. Once found, click it. Since this is a fresh integration, you are given a choice to give this integration a name. It could be anything but relevant. For example, I would name my integration – MyWPLife RSS. After entering the name, make sure to click the Click Integration button. Now, you will be provided an input box where you’d have to enter your RSS feed URL. If you don’t know your RSS feed URL, simply add /feed at the end of your domain. For example – https://mywplife.com/feed Click on the Load RSS Feed button. If everything is fine (which I am sure it is), your RSS feed will be loaded and you will be shown a preview. In addition to the preview, you are also educated about the RSS Keys that can be used for drafting and dynamically adding content in your RSS in email newsletter. After glancing over them, make sure to click the Continue button. That’s it..!! You have completed the integration part. But we are far from done here…
2. Creating RSS Email Template
The best part of using Sendinblue for this feature is that it allows you to fully customize your RSS email template. Once you have clicked the Continue button in the above step, you will be given a choice to either use its pre-built default RSS template or use the one that was used before. For this guide, I will go with the RSS default template. To do so, simply select the RSS default template option and click on the Confirm Email Template button. After this, click the Edit Email Content button to customize the content of your RSS email newsletter. Click the above-mentioned button, a new window will pop up that opens up Sendinblue’s email builder. Upon entering the builder, you can see that you have the flexibility to customize the logo, font style, size, layout, colors, etc. Most importantly, a text block is present in the template that holds a few RSS tags. Some of them include –
{{ item.TITLE }} – For automatically adding the title of your published blog.{{ item.PUBDATE }} – To dynamically add the publishing date of the corresponding post.
After customizing, don’t forget to click the Save & Quit button. You can also include other RSS tags (as mentioned in step 1) and also add different dynamic parameters in your template. For this, you can refer to the documentation on inserting loops and the documentation for using the new Sendinblue template language. Now, click on the Continue button.
3. Choose The Recipients Or Subscribers List
The drafting of the email newsletter step is followed by selecting your recipients. In this step, all you are required to do is choose the list of subscribers whom you want to send RSS email newsletters. For this, you will be presented with a drop-down list. Just select the list and click on the Continue button.
4. Configuring RSS Campaign Settings
After selecting your recipients, you are now allowed to configure your RSS campaign setting. These are nothing but basic settings such as –
Entering the campaign nameAdding the subject lineSelecting the From name and email address
And, a few others. Although, while adding the Subject Line, you should keep in mind that since it is an automated process, you have the power to make your subject line dynamic. This is again possible by adding RSS tags. For example, if you want your subject line to be MyWPLife Articles for Monday 20 July 2020, you would have to use the following format – MyWPLife Articles for {feed.date|time_parse: “Monday 20 July 2020” } Moreover, if you want to get in the advanced settings, you can configure your Reply-To, To, header & footer, etc. Lastly, click on Continue to save this setting and move further.
5. Creating & Scheduling Campaigns
Once you have saved all the above-mentioned settings, you are now required to configure –
When should Sendinblue create new RSS email templates?How to send your RSS email templates i.e. automatically or manually?
Talking about the first setting i.e. telling Sendinblue when to automatically create new RSS email templates. If you want to create a campaign on a weekly basis, simply select a day from the given option. Also, if you want it to be monthly, select the particular day on which you want it to be created. You can also achieve a setting where a new RSS email template will be created as soon as you publish it. For this, you‘d have to select all the days mentioned in the weekly option. Once you have set the template creation frequency, you will now have to choose how and when it should be sent. For this, Sendinblue offers two options –
Send automatically as soon as the template is created.Send manually as per your requirements.
I would suggest you go with the automatic sending option as it negates all the manual efforts. Now, you’d have to again click the Continue button to move to the final step.
6. Activating Your RSS Integration & Campaign
Sendinblue again offers you the flexibility to choose if you want to keep this integration & campaign inactive or active. If you choose the Inactive option, you can enable it in the future depending on your sending needs. But if you choose the Active option, you are allowing Sendinblue to commence the RSS by email sending feature. To do so, all you have to do is click the Save & Activate button. Now, you have completed all the steps and successfully activated the feature. Your RSS emails will now be sent as per the configured settings.
Wrapping Up
That’s it… Now that you have successfully configured and activated the Sendinblue RSS to email settings, you have opened up a new gateway for your blog traffic. With the help of this, not only your new blogs will receive a lot of traffic but you have also ensured that your subscribers stay engaged with your content. If you’d ask me, this is a double-win scenario. Having said that, I would also suggest you keep an eye on the RSS campaign reports for its performance. Make sure to tweak your email template content or the sending schedule to achieve maximum output. As always, if you have any queries, feel free to drop them in the comments section.
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