Too many of you bloggers are neglecting the most effective way to get repeat viewers – the orange RSS button. And I know people who read blogs several times a week without a blog feed reader, so let me help you organize and save yourself some time.
Whether you are a blog reader, blog writer, or both – you need to know about RSS.
I won’t get into the nitty gritty of RSS, let’s just say it’s a nifty way to have your favorite blogs, news and other frequently updated items on the web sent to you rather than you going out and checking for updates all the time. For those who read blogs, you can have all the updates from your favorite blogs waiting in your reader software, just like your personalized newspaper. I go through my blog reader every morning with coffee.
There are many different RSS readers (also known as RSS aggregators) and you can choose one you like best. Google Reader is my choice because it does everything I want from it, and it’s free. You can also get RSS feed readers that send to your email if you prefer that. I like that I can navigate a couple hundred blog posts every day without stressing my wrist on the mouse. (Google reader lets me hit the “J” key to scroll through posts)
Now, for those of you who write blogs – this is really important. You need to have an RSS button featured prominently on your blog so people can subscribe. This makes it easy for people to become repeat visitors. I have visited many blogs, looked for the RSS button to subscribe, then left because there was none. That blogger just lost me as a repeat visitor. If there had been an orange button, even a tiny one, I would be seeing everything they post in the future until I decide to delete them. You can get that button in other colors, but old time bloggers are looking for orange – just FYI.
If you scroll back to the top of this page and look at the upper right menu of my blog, you’ll see a little strip that says “subscribe” and has that orange button. Don’t bury your RSS button where readers can’t find it. The bottom of the page is a bad place. Try to put it high up on your blog, and the right side menu is preferred to the left. Every blog software or hosting service should have something in your blog settings where you can put the RSS “subscribe to posts” option on your blog. Dig around for it. There should also be an option for “subscribe to comments” since these are common atom feeds for blogs.
And a final word for those using free blogs by Blogger, or WordPress or whatever host you picked…before you get all smug and say you have tons of “followers” on blogger or wherever – here’s your wake up call. Lots of readers don’t want to follow you or friend you or whatever your blog calls it. I don’t want you to have my email or URL, I just want to read your blog. So give me that RSS button! If you don’t offer me RSS, I probably won’t return because it takes too many steps for me to add you to my RSS reader the manual way and I’m just too lazy. That RSS button also tells people you know what you’re doing with your blog which gives an air of professionalism, rather than looking like your own little diary on a tiny social network.
I like to blog hop and find interesting new blogs. I also like to add new blogs to my morning reading collection. So make it easy for me and others like me, OK? Figure out how to put that RSS or Atom “subscribe” button somewhere easy to find, and you may notice your readers and comments slowly growing. For those who don’t blog (why not!) you can still take my advice about the feed readers if you don’t already use one. You can even have your favorite Etsy shops send you updates everytime they add a new item. (look for that orange button in your favorite Etsy shop – they all have them) Hooray for RSS!
December 4th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Luci,
Thank you for this post. I have never understood what the RSS feeds were for. I appreciate you explaining why they are important.
Rachelle S.