The RSS button, usually in orange can be found in almost every blog. Many newbie will just ignore this wonderful tool just because they don’t really know what does it mean. Here is a simple explanation on the RSS feed.
We only have 24 hours a day, which we need to spend time on our daily routines, accompanying our family members, as well as reading blogs or blogging. We wouldn’t want to waste extra time by checking updates from our favorite blogs one by one – the so called “blog hopping“.
Some people may argue that they prefer blog hopping, visiting their favorite blogs one by one just to check for updates. Some claim that if there isn’t any updates, they will still leave a message in the chat box. The real intention behind the message usually indicate the owner something like “Oh! Hi there, I was here before and hope you can hop over to my blog too.” I used to do that too for a short period of time. It did boost up some traffic. In fact, that’s what most blog hoppers really want. They may not even read your blog content but just leave a “hi hi” message and hoping that you will head back to them. Most of the time, it works.
This may not be one of the best ways to gain blog traffic. I would suggest you to save up the blog hopping time, and make full use of the RSS button by subscribing to your favorite blogs. Maybe you still think that visiting your favorite blogs daily to check for updates manually is better. You won’t have any problems if you are just visiting 10 or 20 blogs per day. What if you have more than 100 favorite blogs just like me?
That sounds impossible for me to visit 100 favorite blogs daily to check for updates, because I still need to spend some time updating my own blogs or deal with other things in real life. And here comes the solution – subscribe to the feed of my favorite blogs.
You will need a feed reader to do so. There are many free feed readers available. Some popular ones are Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo! and such. Choose your favorite feed (RSS) reader and signup for an account. Subscribing to a blog is just as easy as ABC.
Step 1: Click on the RSS button/link
Step 2: Choose your feed reader
If it is a FeedBurner feed, you will see something similar like the above.
Step 3: Follow according to the instructions of your feed reader.
Now, you are ready to receive notification (blog content) of any updates of your favorite blogs! If you prefer receiving blog updates in your inbox, then you can subscribe via email instead, provided the blog enable email subscription at the first place.
Quick Tips:
Autodiscovery
Modern web browsers can automatically detect feeds and will allow people to subscribe to them simply by clicking on the icon in their web browser. [via EpicBlogger]
P/S: The above steps is just a general demonstration of subscribing to blog feed, it may varies due to different blog feed setup.
I used to read blog feeds via My Yahoo! feed reader. I found it a little hard for me to navigate around, but if you are using new Yahoo Mail, there’s a feature which will display all feeds that you have subscribed to – very convenient. Just before I think of switching to Google Reader, I found out a free feed reader software called FeedDemon which is developed by NewsGator.
I really enjoy using FeedDemon to manage all my RSS feeds. After downloading FeedDemon installer, you will have to install it in your PC. Yes, it’s an independent software. Follow the instructions and you will setup everything within minutes. You will have to create a FeedDemon account in order for the server to store your RSS feeds details and syndication of feeds. Free, of course.
What if you are not using your computer, say, you are in your friend’s house and want to check your feed reader? No problem. Still remember you have signed up for an account? Yes, you can use the same account and login via NewsGator Online in any web browser.
FeedDemon interface – click for full view
You can easily create folders for different categories of blogs. The best feature which I like most is when you want to add a new feed. If you can’t find the RSS feed button, you can just enter the blog URL and FeedDemon will do the searching for you.
FeedDemon is for Windows. For Mac users, try NetNewsWire instead.
By Wendy on Dec 12, 2010
as I website possessor I believe the content here is real superb , thankyou for your efforts.
