RSS Feeds – How to Set Them Up
My last post on RSS Explained received some nice feedback from bloggers around the blogosphere. Some of my readers have asked me to write about how to set up their RSS feeds. This is the purpose of this post and will hopefully help you to get exactly this done in no time.
So lets look at what we need to do in order to get this done. For starters, there are quite a few products that offer us to burn our own feeds. But for now I really only want to focus on Feedburner which is by far the most popular feed burning service in the market. It is free to use and can be utilized by anybody with a blog or website. When you first visit Feedburner, you will see below screen.
To start burning your Feed you will need to type your website URL into the empty box in the middle of the page. if you are a podcaster don’t forget to tick the little box to the right of your URL input field. It will help you to also burn a podcast feed. To demonstrate I’m burning a feed for my self branded website.
As you can see on the next image, I typed the full URL of my blogsite into the space.
After you click next you will be lead to another screen. As you can see below, there is a little welcome message that allows you to check whether the feed URL is to your satisfaction.
Now you will be asked to fill in a username and a password, plus your email address to create a new account. To do this you need to click on activate at the bottom of the page. If you are already a member, you can simply click on the sign in link.
That’s it, your new feed has just been successfully created. See the image below on how it looks like.
From there you will have a couple of options, such as adding Feedburner Pro stats to your tracking which is a neat little feature that used to be only available for paid options. These days however it is free for users. Tick what applies to you and click next.
That’s it, your done! At least with burning a successful feed. The next step is to insert your feed into your blog and Feedburner has some good information on their site to help you with this.
As you can see on this following screen shot you can create feeds for any blog and even for Facebook.
For WordPress users I would recommend to download and install the Feedburner Feedsmith Plugin as it will help you to track all your subscribers within Feedburner.
From here you will need to choose an Icon for your feed to display on your blogsite. You can use the standard feed icons available from Feedburner, or else you can make you own or go to FeedIcons to get your free Web 2.0 style icons.
It really depends on what you personally like and I recommend to learn your way around in the admin section of Feedburner to get more familiar with the subject.
With a bit of elbow grease it really isn’t hard to publish your very own shiny Feed button so your readers can keep updated with your content.
Hopefully this mini tutorial will help you to get going.
Good luck and let me know, once you managed! I might stop over and subscribe to you too.
Monika
Technorati Tags: feeds , rss feeds , how to set up rss , feedburner , feedburner feedblitz
About the Author: I'm a passionate freelance writer and problogger. To further build my business I'm also in the process of building my own niche empire which pays me residual income.
Fred @ Newest on the Net | Nov 7, 2007 | Reply
Great article Monika. I recommend that every use feedburner. There is no better RSS service.
Matt Ellsworth | Nov 7, 2007 | Reply
great overview on feedburner. I use feedburner for a lot of blogs as the tools and tracking they give you are just great.
Joan Adams | Nov 7, 2007 | Reply
Excellent website! I am sure I will return again and again for advice and information! Thank you!
Larry Eiss | Nov 7, 2007 | Reply
Thanks Monika! Now if I can just figure out how to make it work for audio files in MP3–PodCasts–I’ll be all set.
Jason A Clark | Nov 8, 2007 | Reply
I think you’ve written a great “getting started with RSS” article. There are a lot of new bloggers out there who have no idea how to set up an RSS feed. I’m certain they’ll find your article helpful.
Monika | Nov 8, 2007 | Reply
Fred: thank you, yes they are the very best of feed service, one doesn’t need anything else
Matt: glad you liked this post, please do come back again.
Joan: you are very welcome.It is always nice to see a new face here.
Larry: the Internet is one huge learning curve, once you can manage a new task you will feel all the better for investing the time to learn it. Hopefully you can get the hang of it soon.
Jason: nice of you to say, I totally agree and that was the main reason why I wrote this in the first place.
Thanks guys for your comments, I really love to hear from everybody, the more the merrier.
Monika
Lin | Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
Yeah! I’m so glad you’ve written this post. I have seen many newer bloggers who write some great posts but don’t know how to set up their feed subscriptions. I’m going to direct them to this post. Great job!
Wendi Kelly | Mar 26, 2008 | Reply
thank you!
I have spent all morning researching this subject, and wouldn’t you know it, I should have come to Monika first! You are the first one to put it in simple enough words that don’t blur my untechnical eyes and tell me where to go.
Lesson learned! From now on-first stop..Monika’s shop!
Wendi
Wendi Kelly | Mar 26, 2008 | Reply
ok……I am back..hours later and a back ache too. I must say I am no techno wizard. Thanks to you, I have a subscibe to my feed part set up! It took all day but it is done. Thank you very much!
I haven’t managed part two which was to get all the click on add ons to the bottom, no doubt, I am learning due to my being on a custom page of wordpress, which I have not stumbled on to directions that I understand yet. But I am a step closer! No doubt after I learn all of this, I will become very successful and find that I need the Pen Men to rescue me yet again…Ah well, if that happens, I’ll take my hard knocks of success…..
Stubborness WILL win in the end!
I am blurry-eyed……
Shanks…Moneyka……off to a blurry bubbly bath cure….
Monika | Mar 26, 2008 | Reply
@ Wendy: guess what. I’m blurry eyed too. Spent all day traipsing around the big smoke and now I’m soooo dog tired it isn’t funny.
I’m glad to have helped with this post.
You know, that is what it is all about: learning by doing and before you know it you will be a techno wiz kid.
jdc | Mar 28, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the useful advice. You’ve just saved me a lot of time trying to work that feed thing out. Cheers!
Verity | May 20, 2008 | Reply
Have a great nice day!
Monika, how long have you been blogging and how much have you been earning online? Am new to this blogging stuff and I want to learn. I was searching how to install a blog feed buttons in my blog and I happened to browse your site.
I would appreciate it very much if you could visit my blogsite and leave some comments.
Thanks and More Power!
willthebrave | Sep 15, 2008 | Reply
Hi Monika,
Thank God i found you, this is such a great post, simply enough but so much helpful.
I’m happy coz my blog is now have those little funny icons. Thanks to you.
Just an addition, to promote and put those icon on your WordPress blog, feedburn_support would help you as well.
hmmm
now i’m considering to have a domain…