RSS

Why You Should Read RSS Feeds

March 28, 2013 by Kelsey

With the uproar over the closing of Google Reader earlier this month, it has been shown just how many people have depended on this popular RSS reader as their chosen way to read and consume content from their favorite blogs. Regularly reading blogs that appeal to your industry and personal interests is one of the best ways to stay current.

Choosing (and reading) the best blogs shouldn’t be something to hate or not look forward to. When you have chosen the right blogs, you will know because reading each day becomes enjoyable and a way to relax. This is why having a mixture of personal and professional blogs to follow mixes it up and makes it fun.

After deciding which blog to follow, sign up for a reader, like BlogLovin’ or Feedly. These two platforms are available on mobile devices as well, so you can access your content at any time, whether at home or on the metro during a long commute. Many reader services allow you to search for blogs by name to add, so you don’t have to worry about finding their RSS feed URLs.

Once this has been all set up, setting up a daily schedule to check the reader is crucial. Checking it daily will help keep you up to date and prevent too many posts from getting backed up. However, don’t let it stress you out if too many have piled up. BlogLovin’ for instance, allows users to mark all current unread posts as ‘read’, thus clearing their queue and getting it read for the next day.

Many people like reading their blog RSS reader at the beginning of each day as a way to start their day. However, there are many other places this can be done:

During lunch
On the work commute (if you aren’t the driver)
During a workout, on a machine like the treadmill or elliptical
Sitting at home watching TV
Converting to audio versions and listening during a walk or run

There are many places to consume content, it just depends on how much it is made into a priority and taking the time to get into the routine of reading each day.

The benefits of this are far-reaching. Not only will you be more educated and involved in what is happening in your industry, you will also never run out of material to share via social media and email to your audience and network. RSS readers are a great source of useful information that has many uses, both personal and for your business.

photo credit: Pensiero via photopin cc

Blogging Pitfalls: Why You Can’t Be Just a Blogger

August 19, 2010 by Splashpress Media

Everyone knows what being a blogger entails but fewer people know what creating a successful blog involves. Far too many bloggers have fallen for the false mantra of “If you write it, they will come” only to watch their traffic, readership and even profits lag behind their efforts.

There is much more to writing a blog than just simply putting out new blog entries. Even ignoring promotion, communication and other activities all bloggers do, there is a simple truth that, for the most part, a great blog can not be simply a great blog.

Stay Informed: Learn About RSS Feeds

July 30, 2009 by David Peralty

One of the smartest things a new blogger can do, other than writing their own content, is to keep track of what others are doing. This is especially true if you are running a news focused blog, or are trying to compete with another blogger. Many of you probably understand that there are RSS feeds, and that you can subscribe to them, but do you know how or why?

In talking to a client of mine, I was asked, “why do I want to subscribe, rather than just bookmark and check back in?”

The simple answer to this is: so new content gets pushed to you. If you don’t want to miss potentially important content, and want to receive it in a reasonably timely fashion, making sure to subscribe to various RSS feeds, is like buying into your own, personalized newspaper consisting of all your favorite blogs. This will allow you to be more efficient, and if you turn that time savings into writing time, you’ll produce more content.

If you are still bookmarking sites, and visiting them each day, or getting their content in your e-mail inbox. How does that help you? Why are you still doing that when we have RSS subscriptions now that are near instant in pushing content out to you, easy to manage, and powerful, when you dive deep into controlling them.

Currently, I use Bloglines as my RSS reader of choice. It is a hosted, web-based service that makes subscribing, managing subscriptions and reading my subscriptions from any computer connected to the Internet very easy. I know the more popular choice is Google Reader, another hosted service, but I’ve never been completely happy with their user interface (probably because I used Bloglines first and have become accustomed to how it works).

There are also hundreds of desktop clients that you can install on your computer, no matter the operating system you use, and thus allow you to download and read your content when not connected to the Internet, or notify you when you have new content to read in a more “attention grabbing” way than an online RSS reader can do.

If you are looking for more information on the best available options, LifeHacker did a roundup a while back with some great choices.

Start using an RSS reader, keep yourself organized and informed, and you might just be more productive on your blog, but don’t blame me if you start subscribing to everything under the sun, and it consumes your whole day. RSS subscription overload can be a common problem as well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Skip links

RSS

Footer