Adding an RSS feed to websites

Over the last month, a few of my clients have asked me to add an RSS feed to their website so that visitors would be able to “subscribe” and receive updates to their blog posts.

In order to do this, I had to learn a bit more about what RSS feeds are. RSS or Rich Site Summary is a format for delivering regularly updated web content (like blog posts) to people who want the new content delivered directly to them. In the past, people would often “bookmark” sites that they liked and would have to visit those sites frequently to see if any new content had been added. A site with an RSS feed allows visitors to sign up to have these updates delivered to an RSS Reader automatically whenever new content is posted. Another option allows visitors to subscribe to an RSS feed email option, which delivers the feed directly to an email account.

I decided to use the Google Feedburner service to add RSS feed capabilities to my client’s sites. Installing ‘Feedburner’ was easy, and the following button and subscription form was created:

Styling

Of course, by adding additional styling with CSS and adjusting the code slightly, these buttons/forms can be designed to look less generic and reflect the style of your site. See my sidebar on the left to see how my RSS feed buttons look. Feel free to subscribe to my feed — I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.

More information:

There is a helpful video “How to Use Feedburner for Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities” that was created by Gideon Shalwick of becomeablogger.com that gives more information about installing Feedburner onto websites.

Tags:Tutorials, Web Development