Setting up a RSS feed = how to set up a RSS feed so others can subscribe to or follow your blog posts. First, a glossary (important = read it to understand this e-course fully): Blog = an online diary that can be adapted for business purposes. Post = an entry, article, piece of writing or message in your blog. Dashboard = main menu or hub of a blog which provides access to the various elements. Wordpress.com = the recommended blog programme software provider I’m using for ‘free’ blogs. Domain name or URL = the web address of your blog or website. Internet Spiders = robots that search the internet looking for keywords and new material to help with SEO. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) = improving organic or natural search engine results using spiders. Interaction = the ability to contribute or comment on the internet via blogs and forums. Keywords (Tags) = words that are currently being searched for in search engines and are therefore attractive to internet spiders. Categories = archived topic pages to store posts for research or retrieval purposes. Permalink = each posts’ own specific URL created from its headline or title. Link = an interactive method of getting to another website or blog. Widget = blogging programme or application for the blog’s sidebar. Spam = unwanted comments or emails, usually of a malicious nature.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows interested readers to follow your blog through their search engine readers or via an email subscription service that sends your latest blog post direct to their in-box. It has added advantages that the feed’s URL or domain name that is created can enable your blog to be seen elsewhere on the internet, such as in social networking sites and on Twitter. Every time you create a post, a link to it is posted on the relevant social networking location you have selected or activated. Your followers or readers can then see your latest blog post as soon as it is created, rather than they having to search the internet to find your blog. It’s like broadcasting on the web that you’ve created a new post, and it’s automatically sent out to whoever is interested in reading it.

First of all you need to set up a Google account if you haven’t already. Then go to http://feedburner.google.com and follow the instructions: • Sign into Feedburner, or register if you haven’t already done so. The links can be seen at the top of the page; • In the ‘Create an Account’ menu, type in a username, password, submit your email address, create a secret question and provide its answer, and then click ‘Sign In’; • Feedburner will accept your application, and then go to a menu ‘My Feeds need to socialize’:

 

As I already have done this for my other blogs, I automatically get to this page:

So type in the URL of your blog and click on Next:

And you will get to this page to confirm your URL:

And Feedburner suggests a feed URL for you based on your blog’s title, such as http://feeds.feedburner.com/HowToSetUpaABlog which I don’t like:

So I change it to what I do like, which is Setting up a Blog:

And my Feed URL is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/SettingupaBlog - remember it, as you will need it if you want to subscribe to any social networking applications that require your blog feed so that your blog posts can be automatically ‘fed’ to their pages. Clicking on Next takes you to:

Great, you now have a feed!

Click on the Publicize tab to go to this page (see below):

Click on Chicklet Chooser:

And scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the code for the Chicklet icon, and highlight it to copy:

And in a new browser window go to the blog’s dashboard: http://settingupablog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/ (or http://settingupablog.wordpress.com/wp-login.php if you’re not already logged into Wordpress):

Click on Appearances > Widgets (to find out more about widgets, read my blogging e-course ‘What and how to use Widgets’):

Scroll down until you find the Text Widget:

Drag it to the top of the right sidebar and it will open up to receive the HTML code for your RSS Chicklet:

Go back to the Feedburner site in your other browser window to copy the code for the Chicklet and return to your blog to paste it into the Text Widget:

Save, but don’t close it yet, we still have some more code to put in there. Go back to the Feedburner site:

Go to ‘Email Subscriptions’ and click on ‘Activate’:

Scroll down the next page to find the code at the bottom. Don’t use the code in the large box because that is for self-hosted blogs that are allowed to show sign up forms. What we can only use in blogs that have been created from Wordpress.com (which uses free software) is a link to another page provided by Feedburner that has the sign up form on it. The sign up form is for interested readers to subscribe to your blog so that every time you publish a new post they are informed by an email in their in-boxes. The email shows the post plus a link to read it on the blog so that the reader can comment if necessary.

Find the code in the small box, (not the big box), and copy it:

Go back to your blog as before and paste it into the Text Widget in the blog’s sidebar, save and close:

Check out how it looks by clicking on ‘View Site’ at the top by the blog’s name:

And now you can see the RSS chicklet which will allow readers to follow your blog posts through a search engine reader, and a link below to subscribe to the email subscription service. Visit http://fairyblogmother.co.uk/com/make-a-blog/ to learn more about the other blogging e-courses on offer to help you successfully create your blog. © Alice Elliott 2009