Kim Avery Coaching

What is an RSS Feed, and How to Get One for Your Blog

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Just what is an RSS Feed, anyway? Think of it as a way to let people subscribe to your blog and have the content delivered to them automatically every time you publish a post.

Because one of your primary purposes in writing a blog is to connect with your readers, it just makes sense that being able to let them know when you have new content would be important. There are a lot of blogs out there vying for the attention of your target market, and if you are going to rely on someone coming back to your site without a reminder, well … Good luck!

But if they have subscribed to your blog through your RSS Feed, then they will always know when your new thoughts are published.

Google makes it extremely easy to “burn” a feed, or set up your RSS feed. Here’s how it works…

Go to your website and get the main URL of the blog. This is the page that usually shows several of your latest posts, something like http://www.yoursite.com/blog

Then go to http://feedburner.google.com (you will need to be logged into your Google account). Just enter the URL of your blog and follow the prompts. Google will even give you an opportunity to name your blog.

Once you have created your RSS feed, go to the “Publicize” tab and choose the image (called a “chicklet”) that you want to install on your blog. Copy the HTML code that appears in the box at the bottom, and paste it into a text widget on your WordPress website, and you’ve got your very own RSS feed.

If you don’t have a WordPress website, you might need to just paste that HTML code into a plain text file and send it off to your Webmaster or Virtual Assistant with instructions on where you want it to show up on your website.

Best Practice Tip…

Since one of your goals in writing a blog is to connect with your readers, you want to make it obvious. One of the best ways to do that is to encourage comments. At the end of each blog post, make sure you include a call to action by asking for a comment — with a link back to that particular blog post, of course.

Happy Blogging! All the people who have subscribed to your RSS feed are waiting for your message!

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