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RSS feed is a buzz word in the blogosphere but how many people really know what RSS is? In this article I am trying to shed some light on RSS. I will try to answer some frequently asked questions.

What is RSS Feed?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It provides summaries of web content in a simple format. It is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document which is called a feed, web feed, or channel includes full or summarized text, plus meta data such as publishing dates and authorship. An RSS feed is a source of RSS updates for a given website.

Why to use RSS feed?

There are websites whose contents are updated frequently such as blogs, news sites, audio sites, and video sites. It’s a hard word to check a site for the updated content regularly. It would be better for a user if he gets notified when a particular content is published. RSS does this job.

How RSS works?

RSS feeds can be read using software called an RSS reader, feed reader, or aggregator, which can be web-based or desktop-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed’s URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

How RSS feed is useful for bloggers?

RSS is a great tool to keep your visitors informed about your posts. Driving unique visitors from search engines is a good thing but what really makes a blog successful is the number of subscribers. It is like creating a regular customer rather than a one time customer. So, when you create a blog make sure that you provide links or RSS logo for the users so that they can easily subscribe to your RSS feed.

Is there any service available which can do this for me?

If you create a blog from WordPress or Blogger, they have their integrated feeds which can do the job. But I feel the best one is Google’s Feedburner. It has a lot of options to pick from and the best one is the email subscriptions. Each time you post a new entry and the subscriber of your blog will receive an email about that.

I am having a WordPress blog. Is there any useful plugin for RSS feed?

You can use these two plugins:

• FeedBurner FeedSmith: FeedBurner FeedSmith is a great plugin that redirects all your RSS Feeds to a single FeedBurner feed so you can know exactly how many people have subscribed to your RSS feed.
• Subscribe Remind: Although there are many plugins available for RSS Feeds, I found the plugin Subscribe Remind extremely useful. With the Subscribe-Remind plugin, some text will automatically be placed at the end of each of your posts something like “If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!” inviting your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed. Some bloggers also use pop ups and all for reminding readers about subscription to their RSS feed but it can be annoying to your readers. The best way is to use this plugin. It’s anunobtrusive and effective way to turn visitors into subscribers.