A Beginners Guide to Using RSS
You’ve just started your blog, and heard of some new phenomena called RSS. What’s it all about and how can you use it to benefit your blog?
An excellent definition of RSS from the ever so controversial Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss):
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed” or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.
If you are still unsure about how RSS works please check out the video below :
Today, the popularity of most blog’s is measured through how many RSS subscribers it has. This seems to be an accurate way of analyzing your blog’s popularity because it tends to even out traffic between the quality of your posts. You may get a lot of hits, but that says nothing about the quality of your writing. If people like the content of your blog, they will most likely subscribe to your blog’s feed.
How to offer your feed:
Most blogging platforms have a built in content feed publishing system which displays the most recent posts on your blog but how do you advertise this link on your blog? Most bloggers have a section in their sidebar or header where people can click to subscribe via RSS or via email. When putting up your RSS feed, you probably want to display the RSS icon. There are tons of places to get fancy (and simple) icons. Make sure that you integrate them nicely into your website. They should not obstruct your design. The most standard icons can be found at feedicons.com. You can also find some more interesting ones on the list here.
So you’ve set up your blog, you have your feed on display, now what?
There is no way to analyze who is subscribing to your blog just yet. So the next step, a very important one in the development of your blog, is to sign up with a service such as feedburner. Feedburner and other similar services offer advanced tools which allow you to analyze and work with your RSS feed. For example, you may offer an email subscription to your blog’s feed, and you can also publish ads within your feed subscription. Feedburner makes working with your feed much easier. You can also show off how many subscribers your blog has (sometimes it will attract/defer people to subscribe. If you have more readers, more people may be inclined to subscribe through “peer pressure”. However if you have very few readers, some people may be inclined not to subscribe to your feed. For now, if your blog doesn’t have many subscribers, wait before showing off your feed count). Once done, replace the feed that you are currently displaying with your feedburner feed.
Analyzing your subscribers - how many readers is good?
Now, you should probably begin looking through the history of your feed. Find out when people subscribed, where were they referred from, how did they subscribe, etc. One of my favorite free services which analyzes your feedburner feed very well is a project over at blogperfume.com. This powerful analyzer will look back at the history of your feed and generate some stunning charts and graphs to help you understand your feeds history. This is a great, free way to understand your feed data. Web analytics service Clicky also has a nice feedburner subscription tracker. However, you need to purchase the web analytic services too (highly recommended for bloggers - very cheap and effective).
So how many subscribers is a good amount? Frankly, as many as possible. If this is the best way to measure the popularity of a blog, then you probably want as many subscribers as possible (For example, ProBlogger.net has over forty-eight thousand subscribers).
Displaying and offering your blog’s RSS feed to readers is a very effective practice used throughout the blogsphere on many renowned blogs. It will help your own grow very quickly, and if you are unsure about how to use RSS or set anything up, research is very much suggested. Check out these links for further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
Ajith Edassery | May 19th, 2008 at 6:43 am #
Good write up and video
ronny | May 19th, 2008 at 9:36 am #
I enjoyed this article very much. A lot of good, informative info, written is simple terms. Well done!
Barbara Ling | May 19th, 2008 at 9:38 am #
I didn’t know about the site FeediCons.com - very good resource! Thanks.
Barbara
Zoobie Joy | May 19th, 2008 at 5:17 pm #
The first time I heard about RSS I taught it was some kinda of a complicated thing..but later I realize it’s just a way simple way of letting the word out to your subscribers regarding recent updates on your blogs or sites..^^
blisters | May 20th, 2008 at 9:22 am #
I’ve never really gotten aquainted with the whole RSS thing, and reading this article has really increased my understanding on how RSS works. Will definately give this a try in my blog.
work at home ideas | May 20th, 2008 at 7:08 pm #
Very good information about RSS. Every blogger needs to know and understand RSS at some point in their internet marketing journey. Thanks for sharing it.
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