RSS Explained: Why You Should Use It

Those who are bloggers or familiar with blogging are most likely familiar with RSS feeds. But there are still many people who aren’t.

RSS is known as Really Simple Syndication and is a web feed format that is used to publish updated content, such as blog entries, podcasts or news articles. Basically explained, it is a way to read constantly changing content as it is made available.

RSS content is usually read using software called an RSS reader. The orange symbol on the left is used to identify an RSS feed, and when you see that, you know that you can subscribe to their content. You can save the RSS feed to your RSS reader, and every time a website is updated, you will see it in your RSS reader as soon as it is published. Web based RSS readers include Google Reader and Bloglines and they are useful because you can read your subscribed feeds in any browser, no matter what computer you are on.

If you’re a blogger, it is in your best interest to have an RSS feed placed a prominent area where users can easily find it. In most blog software such as Blogger and WordPress, an RSS feed is already installed. If you want to measure how many readers subscribe to your feed, Feedburner is a recommended tool for traffic analysis, ways to promote your feed and a lot more features. It is free and easy to use.

So whenever you see that orange square, you know that you can subscribe to an RSS feed. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to Ten Golden Rules’ Blog RSS feed and be up to date on all our blog posts. 🙂