One of the biggest mysteries for Blogging Beginners is RSS and RSS Feeds.

It’s another term to learn and it sounds so complicated but in fact it’s really simple.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (you probably saw my attempt at humour above) and that for me is no more enlightening than just RSS!

So what does RSS really mean?

When you find blogs you really like the chances are you’ll want to return to that site at some stage to find out what’s going on and keep up to date with the latest news.

The problem is it is so easy to forget the blog address or why you thought it was good or just as likely you don’t find the time to visit again. And what if over time you have a massive list of sites you like – could you realistically visit them all regularly just to see if there have been any updates?

“You sir, yes, you at the back. You clearly have too much time on your hands – most of us struggle to spend more than a few minutes a day looking at the blogs we need to for our businesses!”

Enter RSS

On your travels around the Internet you will have come across this icon time and time again.

It’s usually orange but it can be any colour the site owner chooses.

If you click on that icon it enables you to “sign up” anonymously and receive notification from that site whenever there is a new post. That means you don’t have to visit the site to check if there’s anything new – you will receive a notification automatically.

And very basically that’s what RSS amounts to. A way for blog posts to be sent automatically to people who are interested in anything new posted at a particular blog.

The usual way to view the RSS feed is to use a RSS Reader, such as Google Reader or Bloglines

It is also possible to subscribe to an RSS feed via email and receive an immediate, daily, weekly update of posts in your inbox if the blog provides that option.

These RSS Readers are simply a place where ALL of the blogs you subscribed to send their feeds for you to read in one place. If you find the post of interest you can also “click through” the feed and visit the site.

The major benefits of RSS

For readers of a blog the benefits are clear.

• No need to keep visiting the blog to view new posts.
• No need to provide an email address and run the risk of receiving unwanted emails.
• Can quickly skim through all the posts from a variety of blogs, in one place, and delete those not of interest and read more of those that are.
• Can read the blog posts when convenient.
• Can easily unsubscribe if no longer interested in the content.

For the blog owner providing an RSS feed is a non-threatening way of providing an update to interested readers.

• There are no spam filters to get through.
• No possible accusations of spam – the reader is in complete control and can unsubscribe at any time.
• There are no restrictions to the type of content, including images and video links. A full blog post will be seen with clickable links straight through to the full blog post.
• RSS feeds can also be delivered by email.
• Readers can be encouraged to subscribe to a RSS feed just like email lists – eg free gifts etc. and by using the right WordPress plugins download links can be provided within the feed.

To see this in action – subscribe to Google Reader (you will need a Google Account to do this but it is, of course free).

Once you’ve done that click on the orange RSS icon at the top of the right sidebar on this page – just above “pages” . A page will open, just select Google and then click Add to Google Reader.

Google Reader will then open and you can view any of the posts on WizzerSays at your leisure.

If you are a member of BloggingBeginners there is a portfolio of videos explaining more about RSS & Google Reader together with instructions on how to set up your RSS feeds with Feedburner and using the Ozh Better Feed plugin. As always post a request there if you require more detailed video instruction and this will be created for you.

Wizzer

Ozh Better Feed Installation