RSS Feeds - An Illustrated Guide

You've probably heard the term RSS Feed before, but maybe don't quite understand what it is or why it's useful. The fact is, an RSS feed is extremely useful in many different ways and should be an integral part of any of your websites, blogs, or hubs. In this post I'll explain the benefits of an RSS feed and provide an illustrated example

Wikipedia describes it this way: "RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts." Oookaaay... what? For many of us, this still makes absolutely no sense. Basically, an RSS feed pulls information from one source (like a blog), and posts it automatically to another source (like a website). So for instance, by putting a Hub Page RSS feed into a section of your own website, that section of your website will continually display the latest Hubs you've written. The transfer is done automatically and you need to do nothing.

RSS feeds provide constantly changing content to your website (or blog, social network profile, or wherever else you put it). This makes your site more search engine friendly, since that is one of the best ways to improve your ranking (new content). Providing fresh content to your site is also important to your visitors - with fresh and relevant content they are more likely to return often. The best part about an RSS Feed is that once you set it up it provides new content for you - you don't have to do anything.

Step #1: On your Hub profile page, in the right column, you'll see a link called "Subscribe to YourName's RSS Feed". Click on yours. Go ahead, I'll wait ;)

Step #2: When you click on it, a new window will open that displays your latest hubs. Copy the entire url from your browser's address bar and paste it into the RSS portion of your website, blog, or Hubpage.

Each site is different, so if you're not sure where the RSS Feed input is on your website or blog page, it's best to contact the site administrator (or just look around for the RSS logo or button - like the big orange one above). See below for illustrated steps of how I added an RSS Feed (from my Real Estate blog) to my own blog page. You can see the live version here (scroll to the bottom of that page).

This one's easy! Just choose the RSS capsule while you're creating your Hub. Insert the RSS Feed url and give it a title. Place it wherever you want on your Hubpage. That's it! I've included a products RSS Feed at the very bottom of this Hub so you can see what it looks like (below Comments section).