Promote your Squidoo Lens using FeedCat.net

Here's what I'm going to help you to do:

Register an account.
Submit your RSS feed.
Insert the code needed for FeedCat to track your traffic, promote your feed and record your stats on to your Lens.
Enhance your feed description.
Utilise the service that FeedCat provides to get the best out of it.
Provide you with links to resources about FeedCat so that you can learn more about it.
Offer support and help.

What you'll need:

The URL of your RSS feed i.e. http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/YOURLENSHERE.
Tags so that readers can browse FeedCat's directory and find your lens.

I hope that when I come across problems using FeedCat, I can sort them out either by emailing support or working out the problem myself. Here I will list all the problems that I've come across and their solution, if they've got one!

Constant changing Feed Titles

I've sent an email to FeedCat support asking for help with constant changing Feed Titles even though the allow to update feed title by the feed data box is unchecked. I've also stated that I'm unsure how to notify my subscribers of a change of Feed URL if necessary.

Solution: No response, yet!

Warning flags on Feeds

A few of my feeds have come up with a warning icon stating that the feed could not be found. One of the feeds was incorrect (it had changed!) so I corrected it and re-saved it. The other feeds were fine but I saved them anyway.

Solution: All checked out okay.

All subscriber figures wiped!

This is a worrying problem with FeedCat. I checked my stats only two days ago and my entire subscriber figures for all my lenses had been reduced to Zero. When I checked again the next day they had returned but I know a lot of them have not been returned to the same figures prior to this 'glitch'. But, is it a glitch? Or, is the database just refreshing and the subscriber figures are now correct?

Did anyone else see this?

Solution: None yet!

No Captcha Image on feed boosting submission page

I've sent an email to support notifying them that the captcha image is no longer showing on the feed boosting submission page. I've tried submitting a new feed in Internet Explorer but it showed the same problem.

Solution: Email from support received and captcha code problem resolved!

'FEEDCAT promotes your feed content, measures audiences and saving load of your server resources!'

Visit FeedCat.net.

Click on the Register link at the top of the page.

'Feed track will tell you how much of the readers your feed, blog or podcast have. '

...which is extremely short!

You will need:

a username (the system will check the availability),
a password,
your email address

and

whether you would like to receive the newsletter or not.

Click Sign In

I really wish I could feature this on my Lens but unfortunately, this video is not on YouTube :(

feedcat - Early morning wake up call.

My own Lens about my cat, Authors Like Cats

'Feed: browse currently boosted rss and atom feeds by the tags or search feed by the keywords. '



Insert your RSS feed URL here. I'm running Firefox 3 so I have a subscription button in my address bar which will tell me the RSS feed URL.

Here's the RSS feed URL for this Lens:

http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/promote-your-lens-using-FeedCat

Click Submit.

This is what I'll be adding to this section for this Lens:

promote-your-squidoo-lens FeedCat RSS rss-feeds

I shall also leave the Feed info box unchecked as it does not contain adult content.

Enter the antispam code.

Click Submit Feed

This section will list all the new FeedCat tools that become available that will aid in the promoting of your RSS feed.

Profi FeedBooster - This is a new tool for professional support of your feeds. You would only use this tool if you had a lot of feeds which differ only in the parameter of URL feed. More info here: New Tool Profi FeedBooster.

Top 100 sites for week - This section on FeedCat.net lists the Top 100 feeds. For example: It gives the number the feed is at in the Top 100, the country of origin, the subscriber figures, the title of the Feed, its URL and its description.Top 100 sites

Make sure that all the information is correct. If it isn't, correct it and then click Change Feed Details.

Then Click on the link contained within the pink notice above your feed details: This feed has no tracking icon...

and you will be presented with a screen showing the full javascript code you need to insert into your lens.

However!

Squidoo does not allow Javascript, so you will not be able to insert the full code! Cut and paste the code from the < a href = " " > part to the < / a > part and insert that into your lens, instead. Don't worry! It will still work okay :)

This is how the FeedCat code will look on your lens:

...that you

1 - Activate Click Tracking - Special Features, Item Click Tracking. This way you can keep tabs on what your readers are clicking on and how popular that item is.

Update: I'm not clear if this feature is actually working just yet. Although I've set it up for this feed/lens, no stats have been published.

2 - Check your feeds regularly at FeedCat - I went in there this morning (18 Oct) and one of my feeds was invalid and a few others had the title changed. I couldn't see where the invalid feed came from. It looked like a duplicate of this one so I removed it and with a number of possible subscribers. You do have the option of setting it up to redirect if you'd prefer. I would suggest you do this, just in case you lose subscribers and they don't return.

Go into the Details of each feed and check to see whether the allow to update feed title by the feed data box is checked or unchecked.

If it is checked, the title of your feed will change each time you publish an update (squidcast.) As long as your feed address i.e. feed.feedcat.net /YourLensTitleHere is correct (or how you want it to be) don't change the feed address. Otherwise you will have to inform all of your subscribers the change of feed URL. I'll be checking how you do this.

If you uncheck the box, your feed title will stay the same as when you first set up your feed to be boosted on FeedCat, i.e. On this lens it will be: Squidoo: Promote your Lens using FeedCat.net

Go back to your Lens and click on the FeedCat Icon. Check to see if it takes you to your feed details page (all your posts/updates will be listed here along with options to subscribe etc.)

3 - Set how often you would like FeedCat to update your feeds - In Content, set the Actualization Frequency to how often you feel FeedCat should re-read feed data from your server. Default is set at Weekly.

4 - Subscribe to your own feeds. This way you can check that your feed updates okay. If you've sent out a Squidcast and the feed has not updated within a few days (or however long you've set the frequency), log in to your account and ping the feed.

5 - Update your lenses on a regular basis! On my Google Chrome Or Mozilla Firefox lens my subscribers have dropped from 55 to 28 virtually overnight. Disaster! I checked when the lens was last updated and it was on the 9th of October. Was it really that long ago? No wonder my subscribers didn't hang around! By subscribing to your own feeds you can check just when the last update was without even logging into FeedCat.net.

Click on Item Enhancers on the left navigation menu.

You have a choice to enhance your Feed with links to these bookmarking sites:

Delicious, Share on Facebook, Digg This!, Google Bookmarks, Windows Live, MySpace, Stumble It!, Technorati, Furl, Mister-Wong, Mixx, NewsVine, Reddit and finally, Squidoo!

Neat, huh? ;)

1) When you next log into your FeedCat account, you will see your boosted feeds. It will show:

- Readers in the first week and readers in the second week.
- Items count i.e the amount of Squidcasts you have sent out since you boosted your feed.
- The last date the feed had been picked up and a chance to 'ping' your feed to make sure it is all up to date.

Your feed title e.g. Squidoo: Promote your Lens using FeedCat.net for this lens will be clickable where you can then manage that feed. You will also be able to view the tags and subscription URL at FeedCat.

2) Click on one of your feeds. Here you can manage that feed. You will also have access to the left hand menu as well. If you click on Appearance you will then be able to enter a personal message for your readers, choose a feed page template (by default it is set to Classic) and set or change the Language interface (by default it is set to English.)