Following blogs through an RSS feed

A while back Joni asked me to talk about RSS feeds and following blogs in a reader. I'm finally getting to that. I'm sorry it's taken me so long!

To follow a blog in a reader is very easy. 

First, find the RSS button. Sometimes it's on the blog itself somewhere but it's always in the address bar if there is a RSS feed for a page. This is what that looks like:

Do you see the orange button in the corner? It might be too small. Just look up at the address bar. Now do you see it? Click it. A menu opens up that looks like this:

Click on the option that says "Subscribe to whatever blog it is - RSS". That will take you the feed subscription page. That looks like this:

On the right hand side it says "Subscribe Now!"  and gives you choices on what reader to use it in. I use My Yahoo because that's what my homepage is set up as and that's where I want to view the feeds I subscribe to. Click on the reader you want to use. It will take you to your homepage and should give you an option to keep or remove the feed from your reader. Here's what mine looked like:

Choose keep it. Now you are going to set up your options. Click on the word "options" in the right hand corner of your reader and a menu will open up that looks like this:

Click on "settings". Here's what that should look like:

You can choose to show anywhere from 1 post at a time to 10 posts at a time. 

You can also choose which dates to show posts from ranging from the last 24 hours to any date which shows the last posts no matter when they were posted. 

Under display, the headline summary and image shows a thumbnail picture from the post if one is available, a short summary of the content and the title of the post; image only shows just a thumbnail; headline only shows just the title and headline and short summary shows the title of the post with a short excerpt.

Once you have the settings the way you want them, click on save. Now the feed is set up in your reader. 

If you have a blog and want to see your reader subscription stats just go to your Feedburner page to view them. You have Feedburner set up because I told you about it a long time ago right? If you don't then click here to find out how to set it up :)

This is what that page looks like:

Look at all my readers ♥ If I ever get depressed thinking no one is reading my blog then this page always cheers me up :-D

I hope this helped you Joni...and the rest of you as well! If you need to know anything else just ask. I'll be happy to tell you all about it! Happy Sunday everyone!