What is RSS?
It’s possible that you’ve heard the term “RSS”, “feed”, and “subscribe” being tossed around the “blogosphere” and are not quite sure exactly what is means. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, and is typically paired with the word feed, as in “RSS feed”.
So, what is it?
In a nutshell, RSS feeds are a way to keep track of your favorite websites and blogs. RSS takes the web content from a website and converts it to a subscription. This way, you don’t have to bookmark every website you like and return to each one individually to check for updated information. Instead, you subscribe to the feed. As a blogger or website owner, it is highly recommended that you understand how important your feed is to your visitors. Having an RSS feed enables readers to keep track of your website updates as soon as they occur.
Feeds are typically represented by the orange universal icon pictured above.
How do I get a feed for my site?
Every blog already has a feed, so you will never have to create one (that is, if you use one of the major blogging platforms). The link to your blog’s feed will likely be automatically included in most blog templates. If you have a website that doesn’t have a feed, you can create one (this is called “burning” a feed). We can do that for you here at BAKERY! There are also many services that optimize and publicize your site’s feed content.
How do I subscribe and view my feeds?
In order to subscribe to an RSS feed, you must have a feed reader. Feed readers are free programs, websites, or email add-ons that enable you to read and organize your favorite websites’ content. The best piece of advice I can give regarding reading your feeds is to try out a number of the options and see what works best for you.
Here are a few examples of feed readers on the web:
Google Reader
Bloglines
NewsGator
My Yahoo
Many email programs come with a feed reader already installed. For example, here is Microsoft Outlook:
Here is Mac Mail:
Additionally, popular browsers also come equipped to handle feeds:
Firefox: 
IE 7: 
Learn more:
Wikipedia
ProBlogger
Six Apart
I’ll say it! I was never sure exactly what that little orange button did! I mean, I thought that’s what that was, but I was never sure. I like going to each site through my bookmarks, not a reader so I was feeling a little left out. Thank you for the clarification…. what an amateur I am.
What a great idea for a blog! I’m newish to the whole blogging world so I have what might be a novice blogger/RSS feed question that I hope you can answer. I have a counter that lets me track hits to my site, but how do I keep track of how many people are subscribed to the feed? That’s my unknown statistic. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
Thank you! I’ve been asked so many times about RSS since starting our blog. It’s such a powerful tool to keep up-to-date with favorite sites and blogs.
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