How do you keep up with your favorite blogs? Do you try to visit each one regular, looking for new content that will interest you? You may want to consider putting all of your favorite blogs in one place so that you can scroll through articles, finding the best ones to read in your limited amount of time.
RSS, which stands for Real Simple Syndication, is what makes it possible to grab articles from your favorite blogs and read them all together in one place. You need two things to make this work. First, you need choose a feed aggregation tool, or basically a reader that will pull the different RSS feeds to one location. Secondly, you need to know how to access the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs.
Choose a RSS Feed Reader
Your RSS Feed Reader is a web service where you will have access to all of the articles from the blogs you want to follow. There are many options here. The one I like and use is Google Reader. Google Reader makes it very easy to grab feeds and organize them into different folders, and also to browse through articles by title or by blog.
Grab the RSS Feeds
There are several ways to get a blog’s RSS feeds. Many blogs make it easy by adding a button that you can click. An RSS feed button is usually orange with 3 diagonal slashes.
If you click on an RSS feed button, one of two things will happen. You will either be taken to a page which asks you to choose which RSS feeder you use, or you will be taken to a page with a lot of funny text. In the first scenario, you will only need to select your RSS reader of choice and you will automatically be taken there and will be able to add the feed to your reader. In the second scenario, you need to copy the web site address that appears in the search bar. You will then need to go to your reader and manually set up a new feed, pasting the address in where appropriate.
The other way to add a feed is right from your reader. With Google Reader, you can click to add a new subscription. That is where you can paste the web site address from the previous scenario, but you can also just type in the web site address for the blog. If it is RSS capable, Google Reader can automatically find the feed and set it up in your reader.
The Benefits of RSS
Having all of your favorite blogs in one place is nice. It is kind of like having a newspaper, but customized for your favorite content. With RSS, you can stay on top of new content at your favorite blogs. It is easy to skim past articles that don’t interest you to find the gems that you want to read.
Of course, you will still want to visit the actual blog from time to time, to leave a comment or to read full articles. You can do this easily from your reader by clicking a link. A RSS reader makes interacting with and reading blogs simple. If you are reading to educate yourself, it makes sense to pull content from a lot of blogs into a reader and then focus on the posts that are pertinent to you.
If you don’t already take advantage of RSS and a feed reader, try it out today.
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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com
