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 or blogs. In this post I’ll explain the benefits of an RSS feed and provide an illustrated example.
1. What is an RSS Feed?
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 an Active Rain RSS feed into a section of your own website, that section of your website will continually display the latest blog posts you’ve written on Active Rain. The transfer is done automatically and you need to do nothing.
2. Why is it important?
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.
3. How do I set up an RSS Feed?
Here’s an illustrated example of how to put your ActiveRain RSS Feed into your website:
Step #1: On your blog page, in the lower portion of the right column, you’ll see this little button 
Click on yours. Go ahead, I’ll wait ;)
Step #2: When you click on it, a window will open that looks something like this:
This is your blog in the form of an RSS feed page. Next, copy the entire url from your browser’s address bar, like so:
Step #3: Paste the full url into the RSS portion of your website.
Each website is different, but I’ll use one of my own blog profile pages as an example, so you can see what it looks like. From the member menu area, I’ll click a link called “Add RSS Feed”. See below.
Once clicked, this will bring me to a screen where I’ll paste the RSS Feed url (that I copied earlier), title my RSS Feed and give it a short description. See below.
Once I submit the RSS Feed link, the information from that feed is now automatically transferred to my blog page. See below for a screenshot, or visit the blog profile to see it live.
That’s it – the WHAT, WHY, and HOW of RSS Feeds. Hope I explained it well enough, and I’d be happy to answer any other questions you have. Good luck!
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