How to subscribe by RSS

Subscribing by RSS is an easy way to keep track of blogs you like to read.

Using RSS is one of those things that is quick and easy to do and makes life easier when you are used to it, but seems very strange and different—and daunting— when you haven’t done it before.

So I thought I’d put together some instructions for it.

Google Reader

When you subscribe to a blog, you will be using a RSS reader. There are lots of different ones, but I am going to suggest you use Google Reader… because everyone is familiar with Google, and it’s the one I use, so I will know what I am talking about!

When your reader is set up and you have subscribed to one or more blogs, you will get blog posts appearing in the reader as they are published. You can save the reader as a bookmark or favorite, and check it now and again.

The text, links and images in the post will show up in the reader, but they won’t have the formatting of the original post, so won’t look as pretty. You can read the post in the reader, or click on the link to go to the actual blog (you will need to do this if you want to leave a comment).

So here goes for how to do the above:

Step 1: Setting up your reader with its first subscription.

1. Click on the words “Subscribe by RSS” on my blog… this will take you to a FeedBurner page (if you are doing this on another blog and it doesn’t take you to FeedBurner, see Step 2 below). On the top right under “Subscribe Now” you will be given a choice of readers—choose the Google one.
2. On the next page click on “Add to Google Reader”.
3. This takes you to a Google sign-up page, so you can sign in to use the Google reader. If you already have a gmail address, you can sign in. Otherwise you will need to create a Google account… everyone should have a gmail account! It’s one more username and password, I know, but it’s worth it.
4. Sign in, and you will be taken straight to your new reader. A couple of little introductory “helpful” windows later, you will be looking at my blog’s posts in your reader.

Step 2: Blogs that don’t send you to FeedBurner

1. Set up Google Reader first – perhaps using my blog
1. Click on the RSS icon – you will be taken to a page that has the blog feed’s web address at the top of your browser. This web address could be something like this, for example:

feed://somethinglikethis.wordpress.com/feed/

2. Highlight and copy this address, and paste it into your Google reader where it says “Add a subscription”, on the top left.

Step 3: Accessing your reader

Your reader can be accessed in a couple of ways.
1. Bookmark or favorites it.
2. If you use an internet cafe’s computer or any other shared computer, you can log into your Google account to access your reader. You will find the reader under the ‘more’ tab, on the top left of the Google home page.

* * *

That’s it… happy reading!