Understanding RSS Feeds

It’s funny, most bloggers offer an RSS Feed of their blog and even ping most or all of their blog posts. However, many of them don’t fully understand what an RSS Feed is or how to use it. If you’re one of them, continue reading for a quick tutorial on RSS 101…..

When you open your morning newspaper you read stories from around the world that have been assembled by editors from different sources. Each paper prints the same news stories and you choose which stories and sections you wish to read.

Having RSS Feeds delivered to yourself is much like how you read the newspaper, only your favorite stories and sections are delivered to you online via a free “Blog Reader” or “News Aggregator.”  It’s as easy as creating a personal page in your web browser loaded with news, or “blog posts,” about the things you want to read about.

Setting up your “personal newspaper” involves a few steps and can seem a little tricky. But, if you follow my step-by-guide below, you’ll be reading blog posts from all over the web, on one web page, in no time.

Ready?

Since most bloggers don’t post on a regular schedule, you never know when your favorite blogs are being updated. That’s why you need a “blog reader,” technically known as an “RSS Reader”.

What is an RSS Reader?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Just like your morning paper relies on syndicated news from Assoc. Press or Reuters, your blog reader will rely on the fact that most blogs “syndicate” their news – they “feed” it straight into your RSS Reader.

A news reader or aggregator checks a list of feeds for you, on your behalf, and displays any updated articles that it finds. It is common to find web feeds on nearly all blogs as well as many websites such CNN.com. RSS programs are available for various operating systems.

How do I find an RSS Reader?

A few popular RSS Readers are Newsgator, Google Reader, Rocket, and Bloglines. I, myself, use Bloglines so the rest of this guide will be customized for that reader, but the same principals will work for all of them.

Step-by-step Guide:

[1] Open two browser tabs/windows.

[2] In the first browser tab, link to my blog at http://www.theblogmaker.com (or any other blog you’d like to follow).

[3] In the second browser window, go to http://www.bloglines.com and fill out the “Register” form. Don’t worry, it’s 100% free. Before you can continue with this guide, you’ll have to click on the link that Bloglines emails to you to confirm your account.

When you click on that link, you’ll be taken to a page that offers suggestions of blogs to subscribe to.

The next bit is tricky, but try to stay with me.

[4] Once you’ve chosen a few things to subscribe to, you’ll be taken to your main account page. On the left, under the “Feeds” tab, click on the ADD link. On the right, you’ll see a page with a text box to add the URL of the blog you want to subscribe to.

[5] Now, go back to my blog and at the top right-hand side of the page you’ll see my RSS Feed symbol.  Hold your mouse over that symbol, right click, and choose “Copy Link Location.” Either that or simply click on the link at copy the URL of the page that comes up, which will be http://www.theblogmaker.com/feed.

Then, go back to the Bloglines window and paste that URL into the text box.

[6] Hit “Subscribe.” Bloglines will search and find my blog feed. You’ll be taken to a page where you must click on the check box next to the name of my blog, set a few variables, and then hit “Subscribe” again at the bottom of the page.

[7] You have now subscribed to my blog “feed” and whenever I publish a new post, an update will show up on your Bloglines account.
[8] The last thing you need to do is bookmark your Bloglines account page. From now on, to check on your favorite blogs and to see if they’ve been updated, you just have to visit your Bloglines page. That’s it.

Now, every time you’re on a blog that you’d like to keep up with, you know how to subscribed to its “feed.”

A few ways to find some blogs that interest you:

[9] Start by searching Bloglines. Poke around in your account a little and you’ll quickly see how easy it is to navigate and search for info that interests you. You can even create folders in Bloglines for different topics, if you like.

[10] Other places to find blogs:

- Google -> More -> Blog Search
- http://www.technorati.com -> Search
- Search “blog directory” on Google. You’ll come up with lots of directories dedicated to listing blogs.
[11] Another good way to find quality blogs is to check out the “Blogroll” or list of links on your current favorite blogs. The author will sometimes list blogs that they recommend.
[12] Final tip. You can search Google News on your favorite topic. And, you can subscribe to this as a feed as well! Look to the right side and do the right-click thing where it says ‘RSS’ and add it as a feed to Bloglines.

So! Now you know exactly what your readers are doing when they click on the RSS Feed link on your blog.