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You have most likely seen the acronym many times whilst browsing the internet. RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication; syndicating means to republish an article that has come from another website.

RSS is a good way of having your sites content published on other websites. It might include a short snippet of the full article and images or it might not. But providing snippets allows your users to browse through and decide if they want to go through and read the full article. The RSS feed most commonly includes the title of the article and is another way of providing back links to your website.

What’s the benefit of RSS?
RSS benefits both your visitors and other website publishers.

1. It provides latest updates.
Whatever you’re feed is about it allows your subscribers to see the latest news as it posted.

2. It reduces time spent browsing.
Because RSS feeds shows a snippet of your article, it allows users to browse through them and decide if they want to carry on and read the remainder of the article.

3. It gives control over subscriptions to your readers.
Users able to decide which sites they would like to subscribe to with an RSS aggregator which they can swap and change any time they like.

4. There is no spam.
Subscribing to an RSS feed using an aggregator reduces the spam you receive as you don’t need to join newsletters.

5. It’s easy to UN-subscribe to them
Unsubscribing is easy just go to your RSS aggregator and remove it, unlike emails where most of the time they want you to fill out a short form explaining why you are unsubscribing.

6. They are good for marketing.
Webmasters who syndicate there latest products and product updates will benefit from their readers learning about them every time there website is updated.

There are downsides to RSS?
The downsides to RSS use is to some people its new and they are stuck in their ways.

• Some readers will always prefer to get updates via email.
• Photos and website images do not always show up in an RSS feed.
• The source websites identity can often confuse some readers.
• RSS feeds cause more demand on your servers resources.
• Many websites still don’t offer RSS.

How to start using RSS?

There are only a couple of things you need to begin: an RSS feed like the one on the top right of this blog and an aggregator or reader. There are some websites that will provide you with a list of RSS feeds. An RSS aggregator will read the feeds and make them so that they are readable by the users.

Aggregators are available in two different forms. There are some Downloadable aggregators and then there are web based readers such as Google’s aggregator. Most online aggregators will require you to register; if you use any other Google services then you will be able to use the same login details for their reader.

• Choose the RSS aggregator you are going to use. I recommend a web based one to start with.
• Look on the homepage of your selected website for an RSS or XML button.
• Copy and paste the feeds URL into your chosen aggregator.

Once you have completed these 3 simple steps you can begin reading.

And don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed we even offer Email Subscription

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