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A lot of people wonder why we bother having RSS feeds and why we promote them so much. By “we” I mean bloggers like myself.
RSS feeds are a really easy way of keeping up with what is going on at your favorite blog. I have a list of about 25 blogs that I read on a daily basis. One thing I cannot do though is be bothered with typing in those addresses all the time. My time is worth a certain amount of money and I don’t want to waste it typing in lengthy URLs.
I use Firefox to subscribe to the blogs I enjoy reading and I have all those bookmarks stored in a folder on a firefox Toolbar.
The great thing about doing that is I have all the blogs I read in one drop down list and I can easily scroll through the subscriptions and decide which articles I want to read. It’s like having a TV Guide for blogs.
To use this feature make sure you are using Firefox 3. I love Firefox 3 and I highly recommend it. You should also grab the Foxmarks plugin which will give you the ability to synchronize your bookmarks on other computers. I keep my bookmarks for work and home synchronized this way! I’m digressing…
There’s another reason for RSS feeds though. If you use a service like FeedBurner to manage your feeds you get a lot of extra features that are really worthwhile including email subscriptions. I’ll talk about the importance of email subscriptions in another post.
RSS feeds also help readers understand a little more about you. Becoming a successful blogger isn’t just about making money. Anyone can make money. Success transcends the money. By helping others become successful, you inadvertently become successful yourself. Your RSS feed says a lot about how much others trust your opinions and what you write. In a time when information is at everyone’s fingertips and you have a choice when it comes to getting your information, that RSS number is a badge that tells others you are reliable, trustworthy and honest.
You’ll notice I always have the links to subscribe to my feed at the bottom of every post. It’s important to me that new readers understand the best way to keep up with the information (assuming they found it useful) is to subscribe to the feed. This way if they are gone for a few days without the computer, they still have the list of the most recent posts and can go right to the one that interests them the most.
Find out what I am doing right now by following me on Twitter! If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.
Blow away your Google competition
Internet+12 months=Millionaire
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