RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary and it is a method used to syndicate your content to Feed Readers. This allows your readers to stay informed with your latest content updates as soon as it happens.
When I first started my business blog, I have to admit, I was treating my RSS feed like is was the plague. I had it set up on my site, but I had no interest in learning about it and the advantages of not only having an RSS feed, but how I could use it to my advantage in my business.
As my feed subscriber numbers began to grow, I realized that I’d better get with the program, buckle down and learn the ins and out of how it all works:
- What is an RSS feed and what its purpose?
- What are the advantages of burning your RSS feed?
- How can you optimize your RSS feed?
So how does an RSS feed work?
As soon as new content is published, it gets displayed on your feed page (which has its own URL address) and your subscribers are able to fetch new, fresh content almost immediately using their favorite Feed Reader.
Here’s a quick video that explains RSS:
This is all well and good but if you are an up and coming site that is growing fast, hosting your own feed may cause some issues.
Imagine you are updating your site with two new posts every day and you are now a very popular site and have well over 10,000 visits a day. Easy to imagine right? And out of those 10,000 people, 5,000 of them have subscribed to your feed.
Now you have 5,000 people drawing on your server to fetch your feed page twice a day to get your updated posts – at the same time! This is putting pressure on your server.
As a result, this may begin to cause issues with the quality of how your posts are being delivered. Let’s not forget the fact that your web hosting account fees may begin to increase dramatically.
To solve this problem, good ole’ Google has come to the rescue with Feedburner. Now there are many other sites that provide a similar service as well, but I will discuss Feedburner because it’s a popular version, works well and it’s FREE (always great to hear that).
So Google is now taking on the burden, if you will, of hosting your feed on their server. Now instead of thousands of feed aggregators bombarding your server trying to grab your feed like something out of the Matrix movie, they are doing it to Google’s servers instead.
You can just sit back and relax as Feedburner plays personal assistant to your content and distributes it for you, and at the same time provides quality control.
So we’ve already discussed the benefit that it frees up your server.
But what are the other benefits?
- You can display your ads in Feedburner
- You can set it up so readers can share your content
- You can syndicate content such as audio and video
- You are provided with stats on your feed
Setting up Feedburner is actually very easy and I will show you how to set one up and incorporate it into your site in a future post.
If you are using a Content Management System such as WordPress, Typepad or Blogger than the feeds have already been built into the script. You will just have to find the URL that your feed sits on and plug that URL into Feedburner.
Feedburner will then provide you with a new URL address where your feed will be hosted on. It will be in the form of:
http: //feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeedtitle
Once the new URL is generated from Feedburner, you then plug that URL somewhere on your site, normally in a widget of sorts on your side bar displayed in an RSS icon.
Well, that’s it in a nutshell. If you haven’t added an RSS feed to your site or are not taking advantage of Feedburner as of yet, get cracking! 
How has your RSS Feed worked out for you?
Dont’ forget to subscribe to my feed and get updated on new articles!
Hey, btw, if you enjoyed this post, please share, tweet it, diggit, reddit, FB-it, you get it.
Hi Michelle,
Really great post!
You really did a great explanation of RSS.
I wanted to subscribe to your feed but email option is not enabled, you can read this post on how to do this: http://www.youngprepro.com/blogging/enable-email-subscription/ (I would love to subscribe via email).
Thanks so much for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Hi Onibalusi,
I've actually been back and forth on whether or not to set up that option. I been reluctant to do so, since I'd rather people sign up for my newsletter.
But I guess if enough people request that option, I may be willing to provide it.
Thanks for the link…I'm sure many people will find it very useful.
Have a great day!
Hi Michelle,
I also knew that was why but you never know how many subscribers you are missing. I have discovered your blog months ago and I have wanted to subscribe my first day, this was my only restriction (sincerely!) – I am actually subscribed to your list and it is only when you mail your blog posts that I know your blog is updated.
Anytime I want to subscribe to blogs with email option enabled, I first access their feedburner address and slect the email option (if they don't have a form on their blog) – you don't need to link to it on your blog (even though this will bring more results) but having it enabled makes the difference.
I think I have been able to convince you
, I'd like to know what you think.
Thanks so much,
-Onibalusi
LOL…you are a very convincing man. OK, you've twisted my arm. I will add this function later on today and then evaluate how it goes for me.
Thanks for being a stand for me and looking out for my best interest…I truly appreciate it!!
Hi Michelle,
Like you, I neglected setting up a feed for a bit. As my traffic grew I realized the important of setting up an online newspaper in the form of a feed.
Feedburner really helped us bloggers out, and I'm grateful for it.
Thanks for sharing the step by step instruction and video
Ryan Biddulph
You really have a way with words Ryan “setting up an online newspaper in the form of a feed”
Oh, the lessons we learn…
Thanks for the sharing!
Hi Michele
It's coincidence that i also released a post about increasing RSS subscriber few days ago. We got to realize that RSS feeds is a convenient way of keeping up to track on the latest content from the blogs we like. There are a lot of benefits out of it. I think we must make full use of it especially feedburner which works very well and free(as you mentioned)
To be frank, i like to visit site personally but i realize that i always miss out on certain blogs. Thats why i like to subscribe RSS feeds nowadays.Thanks for sharing the great post.
Hey Lye,
Well I'm just going to have to check that post out.
I actually do always visit the blog. I just use my feed reader to keep up to date on my favorite blogs and always clicking on the 'link' to visit the actual site. I just seem to get a better experience that way.
Thanks for stopping by Lye.
I would definitely add email form from feedburner.
So many people don't know what a RSS reader is, nor do they even want to use one, and we all use email so it makes sense to add one.
Hi Rob,
Yes, I was one of those people. =) But thank goodness learned the value of it and I'm hoping after reading this many others will see that as well.
I have added the email function as per the request of my buddy, Oni. =) Let's see how it goes.
Thanks for stopping by!
Great Michelle,
I tried subscribing via the form on your sidebar but I am getting an error that “this feed does not have subscription by email enabled”. I have subscribed via the email option shown on your feed and I noticed there is a difference between it and that of your sidebar – that of the sidebar is “new-biz-blogger” while the real one is “Newbizblogger-OnlineBusinessTips” – You might want to check n this.
Thanks so much,
-Onibalusi
I have written quite a few post about it in the hope it helped some of my friend learn more about it, but they are just not really savvy to it, so they rather use email, then again, I personally think email format is the best one with feedburner.
I think you may just surprise yourself at how many prefer it.
The only disadvantage i see of feedburner is that it actually takes time to recognize your new blog posts. It could take up to a day for feedburner to finally appear in peoples readers because it is not that quick.
Thanks so much for letting me know Oni!! I activated the function without testing it…silly me. It is activated properly via the RSS icon though.
Take care. =)
Best post I’ve read explaining RSS.
Link love coming your way at some point for this one.
Awesome – thanks for putting it together so thoroughly Michele
Thanks Alex…that means a lot to me coming from you! Really! I’m glad you enjoyed it. =)