What is an RSS Feed?
Posted on 05. Oct, 2009 by Cat in Blogging
One of the most useful aspects of blogs is that they have these things called “feeds” or “RSS feeds”. RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication” and it allows your readers to subscribe to your blog, be notified when it’s updated and read your blog updates through a feed reading service like Google Reader.
Not everyone uses a feed reader but many people do and so it’s a good idea to make sure your blog has its feed prominently displayed.
The standard way to display a feed is to use the RSS feed icon – which is like a couple of broadcast waves coming out from a dot, generally on an orange background like so:
Be aware that web designers sometimes feature this feed icon in different colours and incorporated into different objects. Sometimes the feed icon doesn’t show at all and instead you’ll see the words “Subscribe to my blog”.
It can sometimes turn up in the address bar of some web browsers. Here is an example of it in Firefox:
However, don’t rely on it! It is important to make sure that there is a clear way for people to subscribe. I have seen too many poorly designed blogs where there is no obvious subscribe button anywhere.
Feedburner
FeedBurner is free (it is now owned by Google) and gives all sorts of tools to make your feeds that much more powerful. Of particular use, it lets you analyse your feed traffic as well as add advertising.
If you decide to go with FeedBurner, and you probably should, then switch over earlier from your blog’s default feed sooner rather than later so that you can ensure as many as possible of your readers are using your FeedBurner feed.
Full feed or Exerpts?
Either through Feedburner or your blogging software, you will usually have the option to allow people to subscribe to your full posts or you can just give your readers a small excerpt in your feed. If you only allow small excerpts to be published, then readers will have to visit your blog to read the rest of your post. There are pros and cons for both ways. It’s probably best that you err on the side of giving your readers convenience – after all, a primary reason for having a blog is about building a relationship with your reader. Excerpts can be annoying as it forces them to read you in a way they don’t want to.
There are other ways of getting people to visit your blog from an RSS reader – for example you can link to your other blog posts. You can also ask a question that encourages people to comment (and they’ll have to visit your blog to do so).
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