RSS Feeds & Reader Made Easy

For a long time, the little orange square indicating RSS feeds made me cringe.  What in the world is an RSS feed?  Clicking on it would take me to a screen with a bunch of text that made no sense at all, further confusing me.   How was I supposed to subscribe to a blog when this kept happening?

This is going to be a basic explanation, not a technical one.

An RSS feed goes hand in hand with a Reader.  First, let me explain about the Reader.   It is necessary in order to utilize the RSS feeds.   In a nutshell, the Reader is a place that holds all of your blog and website subscriptions in one location.  It helps cut down on the incoming traffic to your inbox.  Before I learned about the Reader, I had so many emails coming in to notify me that a new blog had been posted.  Now I just have to open up my reader and there is a list of all subscriptions, and any new posts show up on the main page (Google Reader).

Choose which Reader suits you best.  These are a few of the ones out there – Google Reader, Feed Demon, My Yahoo! Reader.  Sign up and download any necessary software.  These Readers are free.

Once you have your Reader opened up, it’s now time to add all of your favorite blogs and websites.  This is where the RSS feed comes in.  RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  It’s an easy way to sign up for a blog or website.  The symbol for RSS feed or subscription is that little orange box with 3 curved lines.  Some sites have just the 3 curved lines or just say RSS.  Regardless of how it is shown, the same thing applies.

1.  Go to your favorite blog or website.

2.  Find the RSS feed symbol or indicator and click on it.

3.  There are 2 options for subscribing to a site.

a. A screen comes up that asks which Reader you are using.  Find your choice and click

on it.  This will add it to your Reader.

b. If you click to subscribe and a screen comes up with a lot of text that doesn’t make much sense, you will need to subscribe THROUGH your Reader.  (ie.  Google Reader has a         Subscribe button on the upper left of the screen.)  Click on the Subscribe button and type in the URL (ie. www.melissa-burns-photography.com) of the website or blog you’re wanting, then click ADD.  This will add it to your Reader.

4.  Do the above any time you want to add a new blog or site to your Reader.

Now you have all of your blog and website updates all neatly organized in one place!!  Trust me; it makes it so much easier.  I actually read more of them now that they are all together.

©Melissa Burns Photography – www.capturedmomentsbymel.com –capturedmomentsbymel@gmail.com