dandelionblog.com

You’ve heard people talking about RSS feeds, but really, the whole technology of it makes your eyes glaze over. This article is for you.

Want to make your blog hopping simpler? How about using a feed reader? RSS (known informally as Really Simple Syndication) can help you keep up with all the blogs you read. When they are updated. All from one central location.

You’ve seen these icons scattered all over the web.
 Subscribe in a reader

That’s people trying to make it easier for you to read their information. Clicking on those squares will allow you to easily subscribe to their blog.

If you’re not using a feed reader your blog hopping probably goes something like this. You blog hop to a blog. Sometimes there will be a new post, sometimes there won’t. Nothing new. Go back to your bookmark list or favorites and click on the next blog. Check and see if there is a new post. Takes a lot of time.

Here is where using a feed reader comes in. With a reader, you’re provided a list of all the blogs you visit, and how many new posts there are for each blog. If no new posts are there, you just move down the list. Only click on the blogs with new posts.

I’ve tried quite a few readers, and settled on Google reader. If you have a Google account, log in here. If you don’t have a Google account (or Gmail account), click on create an account, and set one up.

After logging in, you’ll see this:

You can click on the video there and watch how to set up the reader. Or follow along with my easy setup steps. See the red arrow on the left? Click on the plus sign to add a new subscription. This box will pop up:

Type or copy and paste the URL to the blog you want to add to your reader. (there are other ways to add feeds, I’ll show you that in a minute). Click add. You’ll see you’ve now subscribed to the blog.

See DandelionBlog in the left column? (you can click on the image to bring up a larger, clearer image) Now see where the red arrow points to add to folder. Click there and this box will pop up. Create a folder here. You could have folders for writing, creativity, news. Not only blogs have RSS feeds. Your local online newspaper probably has one too. Subscribe to whatever you want to follow and organize the information into folders.

Here is Google reader in expanded view:

If you click on the title of the blog post, it will take you directly to the blog. If you scroll down, you can read the posts right from the reader. Notice that Google Reader lists how many new posts are available for each blog you’ve subscribed to.

So, sometimes you get really behind in reading blogs. Here’s a hint. Go to your Google reader and click on mark all read for any blog that you don’t want to go back and read all the posts, but you want to know when new posts are posted…because you swear you’re not going to get so behind again…really.

Now, how about an easier way to add a site to your reader. See up at the top of my browser at the end of the URL for my blog page? The orange square. That means the page has an RSS feed. It might look differently on other browsers (I use Firefox), but the icon should be there on most browsers.

Clicking on the icon brings up this page:

Click on the Add to Google Reader, add the feed to a folder, and you’re all set. There is more to Google Reader, but this will get you set up and running. Bookmark your Google Reader page and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without an RSS feed reader.

Important Tip
Make sure you subscribe to your own blog so you can check and see if there are any problems with the feed.

If you would like to learn more about creating, maintaining, and promoting your author website along with the creative spirit it represents, please subscribe to our full RSS feed.

Tags: How to Blog //