RSS is such an interesting technology. It has truly spearheaded a complete mind shift in the way people design, look at, and interact with the internet.
When I first read an e-book in 2003 about this new RSS technology that was becoming more mainstream, I have to admit, it was a little fuzzy. The only RSS readers available were software programs you had to download and install. Only a few sites even published RSS feeds, and the few popular blogs that existed only had a handful of subscribers. But even in my ignorance, I ran out to get a blog realizing at the time, that it was one of the fastest and cheapest ways to publish your own RSS feed.
Now look at where we are today! Most sites that publish content on a regular basis have an RSS feed. All blogs have one, or multiple feeds. We have over a dozen very high quality web based RSS readers that keep getting better, and subscription options are more plentiful than ever.
Awareness of RSS is still growing, and it has really begun to pick up steam in the last 2 years. Even for people that aren't very technically saavy... it's easier than ever to get them plugged in as an RSS subscriber through new easy to use tools.
Still Unclear About RSS? Here are some resources and a video that will help:
- Seth Godin's Squidoo page on understanding RSS
- Justin's - Beginner's Guide to RSS
- Jim Cronin's Real Estate Tomato RSS Explanation
Great Video Explaining RSS:
If you are just getting started, I highly recommend the new version of bloglines, which can be found at: http://beta.bloglines.com or Goolge Reader. Both offer easy ways to subscribe to new feeds, and are realy easy to manage. I particularly like Bloglines because it has a great folder organizing option, and automatically checks off articles you've already read.
Quick Steps to Getting Started as an RSS User/Reader/Subscriber
Really quick... if you are still unclear about how to sign up to an RSS feed, I'll make it really easy for you:
Step 1: Make sure you have Firefox 3.0, or Internet Explorer 7 or 8 installed.
Step 2: Navigate to a website you want to subscribe to.
Step 3: Find the Orange RSS Icon 
in the browser bar and click on it. (some sites don't have an RSS feed)
Step 4: Choose Your feed reader
Step 5: Visit your RSS reader to make sure you subscribed (optional)
~ Homework~ Go sign up for an RSS reader and subscribe to 10 blogs or websites. This will get you familiar with the RSS technology, and prepare you for what we are going to cover next.
Do You Publish An RSS Feed? If You Have a Blog, Then The Answer Is YES!!
In this 2 post series, I want to review not only what it means to be an RSS user/reader/subscriber, but what it means to be an RSS publisher! If you're reading this, I can safely assume that you're an ActiveRain member that has an account. If that is true, then you have your very own RSS feed! I want to show you how to use it to it's full potential.
*** This section will explain how to find your ActiveRain RSS Feed. If you need help finding your feed on an outside blog, please comment and I will help you. (Keep in mind, some blogs have multiple RSS feeds!)
First, let's find your RSS feed. Navigate to your ActiveRain blog, and scroll down until you see the RSS chiclet 
in the right sidebar. Or simply type in "rss" after your blog URL, like this: http://activerain.com/blog/YourARusername/rss
This RSS feed is important, it's your lifeline to your readers. One of your primary goals as a blogger is to get as many people as possible to subscribe to your feed. The beautiful thing about RSS is that your content will be pushed to your subscribers. You won't have to trust that people will come back to your blog every time they want to read your articles (which isn't likely to happen).
Your Activerain RSS feed is a great tool, but it has it's shortcomings....
What is Feedburner, and Why Should You Care?
Feedburner is a Google owned company (as of recently), that is in the business of RSS delivery. In a nutshell, they will take your plain old RSS feed, and will provide a number of services including: more browser flexibility, more subscription options, subscriber statistics, RSS email delivery, and alot more... Feedburner is your RSS feed on steroids.
If you are serious about getting RSS subscribers, giving your readers more flexibilty, viewing subsriber stats, and delivering your feed via email, then I HIGHLY suggest you sign up for feedburner.
Getting Your RSS Feed Set Up With Feedburner:
Step 1: Sign up for an account at Feedburner.com
Step 2: "Burn" your RSS feed. (tell Feedburner to start managing your RSS feed)
Step 3: You're done.... wasn't that easy? Now you simply need to promote your feed.
~Homework~ Find your RSS feed, and get signed up for Feedburner. Then, make sure to subscribe to this blog so you can read the second part of this RSS Series.
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Feedburner is an essential tool in any blogger's arsenal. My post next week will cover advanced tactics to optimize feedburner.
Learn How to:
- Set up Feedburner email subscription options.
- Add an email subscription box to your ActiveRain blog.
- Add social bookmarking options into your Feedburner feed.
Hope to see you there!
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Please comment if you have any questions!!
From: The Publisher's Guide to Understanding RSS
Very nice! I am fairly high tech, but didn't ever take the time to get into this. Thanks for the info!
Truly appreciate all of your information -- I've been blogging (though didn't realize that was what I was doing) since 2005. Will check into all your suggested sites, above. Thank you!
I know this is something that has been fuzzy to me when starting...Thanks for the info!
Thanks ... I will bookmark this to read later ... LOTS of info! pippa
Thanks for helping. I will have to come back & watch the video.
Great information, bookmarked. Thanks for the explanation.
Justin, I am over my head on this, but fascinated. S I will make time to check out the Bloglines and Google Reader, and back ton your blog to read on Feedburner. One baby step at a time.
TCB, I have a question. I have been in an audience listening to a SEO yoda who identified the biggest mistake bloggers make in regards to SEO is not having RSS feeds directly to their "Categories" as well as their blog.
If this is true does that mean we are actually trying to write a blog that contains "mini-blogs" within it we refer to as posts? It seems yoda is saying that each individual page has the capacity to carry the traffic if it catches on with a crowd?
dean
Nice tutorial, Justin! I'm going to bookmark this one for later (and to share)
I thought I had this down but after reading your post I realized I didn't.
Hi Justin, I look forward to your comments/advice, etc., following my website review. Great idea having your website review button so conveniently placed in your sidebar! I didn't realize you were offering that service so I'm so glad you posted and I visited right when I was looking for a review! I actually signed up elsewhere for a review as I need the help/input, etc., and to this day never got a response from that person (who also contributes on AR). Amazing, but I'm very glad it worked out that way. Love the new Tomato site!
Justin,
I can't believe this isn't featured. Well as your associate we have to admit you've done us proud once again. This is a great resource to so many who don't k now anything about RSS feeds and how they work. Furthermore you go in deep detail as to how to integrate them into your websites. We will add this link to our sidebar so the entire community, if they didn't see it already, can make use of it in the future. Thank you for providing this resource to Active Rain.
@Dean I think category RSS feeds are important, but to call it the "biggest mistake bloggers make in regards to SEO" is a pretty sensational statement... and not true. It doesn't really have much to do with SEO at all actually. It can just improve usability for your readers/subscribers.
I know many successful bloggers that don't use these, and do perfectly fine. Of course, if you are running Wordpress, it is usually built in by default. Just type in: "/feed" after each category, and you have a custom RSS feed for that category. But I have actually seen very few people use this successfully as it can become very complicated to promote multiple RSS feeds, especially if you don't have the traffic to support it. But the potential is there to provide custom tailored content to a certain type of reader. For example, you could send market reports to a potential seller, or listings and community information to a potential buyer. Implementation is key here.
@Castellum Realty
Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I thought this was a topic that alot of people had a hard time understanding but maybe I was wrong. Most students I teach don't get it until after we have a 1 hour class about it. So, hopefully it can be a good reasource for people in the future.
the video was pretty good at breaking it down and explaining. The rest of the material was great. I am also pretty tech but sometimes there is just so much to learn and figure out, so it is nice to have it all spelled out.
Great article, I'll need to watch the video.
I am bookmarking this to learn more this weekend. I always check in to your blog to try and build my knowledge base in all of the sometimes overwhelming options available.
Thank you!
Justin- I, too, bookmarked your post. Thank you for posting and generously offering to help set up feeds. I have tried repeatedly set up feess on my outside blog (I need some help on this too) and don't really know that I have been successful. I assumed the feeds on AR were automatic. I would love to take you up on your offer. I have read articles and it seems easy but I don't think I have been successful. With appreciation,
great article alot of information for me to absorb - I will watch the video soon and hope to grasp a better understanding.
Thanks, Justin. I've just started subscribing to RSS feeds on my Google page and it is confusing because you have two choices. Today a new one bumped one of the two that were on my iGoogle homepage. So much to learn, so little time! At least you have helped clarify how to do it on my own blog. LOVE the VISUALS.
Excellent information - especially the graphics since I am visual. I've bookmarked your page for future reference.
OK so I'm going backwards but it still works. I have a feedburner account but have not really understood what to do with it. I have it on one blog but not on AR as well.
I have a Blogger Blog that I set up RSS with Feedburner for but sounds like I need to go through it and optimize my ActiveRain site.
This has been on my list of things to look into and do...So many Blogs...so little time!
It seems there is always something new to learn, and I really appreciate the tutorials that allow me to grasp these important concepts.
Uh, oh!!! Justin, I got as far as pasting into my settings. Then I went to admire my work - not only was the feed gone, but so is my AR Blog Customizer and my blog is back to before I customized it.
I have no idea what I did wrong.
Thank you so much! I read your blog twice already and I hope I'll make good use of this information since I'm in the process of setting up an outside blog.
Way to break it down on a basic level!
I just FeedBurnt my blog! I
got here because of next week's post (this week's post, actually), and I was sent here.
Now I'm back to finish the rest of the homework!
Thanks for the simple explanations!
I'm here because of Bill Gassett's subscribe to my blog post, which mentions feedburner, which brought me to Optimizing your RSS Feed 2, which brought me here. Now I am going to set up feedburner. Thanks.
Thanks,
I set up feed burner.
Richard
Justin - following a little behind here on this RSS stuff... I tried to burn the feed on feedburner and I get an error message: does not appear to be a valid feed and that there is an error on line 19 which is this
except in html - do you have any ideas what how I can get the feed burned? Thanks ~Rita
Hi Rita,
Try it again burning this feed: http://activerain.com/blogs/brianburkeis/rss
Hi Justin,
I got my "homework" done so far. On to the next educational subject! Thank you...
Hello Justin,
I'm in the middle of my homework. I set up the Feedburner account. Then, when trying to burn in my AR feed I got back at least one fatal error message. The big one says my file exceeds 512k in size. I also ran the feed validator and it produced a ton of bunk. Any suggestions for a cure?
Thanks -- John
Hi Alexander,
I've never seen or heard of that problem before. Try burning your atom feed instead: http://activerain.com/blogs/clarkcountyexpert/atom
May have just been a problem with Feedburner? I'm not really sure. If that doesn't work, you may just need to contact the Feedburner support.
Hello Justin, still says the file size is too great, even after I append their suggested phrase: http://activerain.com/blogs/clarkcountyexpert/atom?max-results=3
I'll try to see if their support can help out. Thanks. John
Hi Justin, Great post as I know little about feedburner and RSS feeds. Thanks for the info.
Justin - finally had time to go and figure it out and got it to work. When in the step 2 of 2 it asks for options you can add - is there anything special that should be left out or added on? ~Thanks Rita
Justin - Even though I have subscribed to several blogs I still didn't really understand rss. Thanks for explaining. I will need to sign up for bloglines.
Thanks for the info. I've been using feedburner for a while, but keep getting confused about the whole thing. Great summary.
Justin, thanks for the advice on signing up for feedburner. This gives me a better insight on what RSS is all about.
Thanks Justin! I just did it!
This is a great explanation about rss... one of the best on Acitive Rain. Thanks
This is great! I have really been trying to keep up with all my activerain, facebook, twitter, etc. It's great to know I can now package everything and just check in once a day to one site.
This will be a time saver! Thanks