RSS Feeds – How To Guide

Are you using RSS feeds?  Do you know what RSS feeds are?

If you answer no to either of the above questions, you are not alone – actually you are part of the large majority.  While RSS feeds are continuing to gain more and more mainstream use, they still remain a bit of a mystery to most.  Wikipedia sums up the gist of it this way:

“RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format…Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader,” “feed reader,” or an “aggregator,” which can be web-based or desktop-based.”

So what does this all mean to you?

For starters using an RSS reader to subscribe to RSS feeds is a good way to keep up with news that relates to your industry.  There are many places to gather RSS feeds and much of it is quite good.  I follow about 50 feeds right now that range from work related to items of personal interest.  All this information is posted to one location where I can review it all at once.  Also, if you find yourself going to multiple news-related websites or blogs on a regular basis, if these sites offer an RSS feed you can subscribe to that regularly update your reader.  You will likely see the following icon either on the page or in your browser address bar if an RSS feed is available:

Yes, this icon appears on this blog website – this blog of mine you are reading is available as an RSS feed.  This means you can have all my blog postings delivered to you without having to come to this blog.  If you have your own blog, you can offer RSS so others can have it delivered to them as well.  The best part is you can syndicate your RSS feed via multiple syndication websites where it can be found and subscribed to by others.  You have now multipled the distribution of your content so you are reaching a larger market.

Whether expanding your market reach or expanding your informational resources – RSS is a valuable tool to look into.

Click here to view my RSS Reader Demostration Video on how to use an RSS Reader and subscribe to an RSS feed – under 5 minutes