(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)
Unless your blog is completely edited manually (in other words, instead of using some software like WordPress or Movable Type, or using a service like Blogger or LiveJournal, you edit an HTML file by hand), this should be very simple, because most, if not all, of the work is already done for you.
Services like Blogger and LiveJournal (which I don’t use myself, but I subscribe to some blogs in both) offer either an RSS or an Atom feed automatically. In Bloglines, for instance, all you have to do is type the blog’s normal address, and it automatically knows what the feed for that blog is. Still, it may be useful to add a link to the feed in the blog’s front page, if it’s not there already - for instance, for a Blogger/Blogspot blog, the feed is located at the blog’s address plus “/atom.xml“; for a LiveJournal blog, you add “/data/rss” to the normal URL.
For WordPress blogs (like this one), you have several choices: assuming you’re using Permalinks (I mentioned them in a previous part of this series), you have an RSS feed at your address plus “/feed/” and an Atom feed at the URL plus “/feed/atom/“. For Movable Type, I think you add “/index.rdf“, but I think it’s changed in recent versions to “/atom.xml“.
Again, if your software and/or theme doesn’t show automatically an RSS link (it may be called “Syndication” or “Feed” or some combination of those), you should add one yourself to the front page (possibly by editing the theme).
But there’s more (I don’t think you need this for Blogger / LiveJournal blogs): you should view the source of your blog’s front page (use your browser), and look for a line, near the top, like this:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://site.com/feed/" />
The important bit is the “application/rss+xml”. That tells search engines and aggregators where your feed is located.
If it’s not there, edit the front page’s HTML (it may be located in the theme files, like “header.php” for the theme I use) and add the line yourself, near the other lines beginning with “<link rel“. Repace the address with your blog’s feed’s, of course.
Related posts:
RSS feed
Oh great. Now I have to go back and read the first seven articles, too! Actually, I’ve got to read this one and #1-6. I started with #7 because it seemed like a step to be taken before this one, which indeed it is. Thanks for the info!
You’re welcome. Glad to be useful.
To everyone: note that I use FeedBurner instead of WordPress’s own feeds, so my feed (both RSS and Atom - it’s adaptable :)) is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheTlog .
Thank you for posting this series! It has been immensly helpful especially this post. I read about 30 blog a day and your post RSS really helped me. Thanks again!
my rss feed with wordpress has feed: before the actual site. why is this, and how do I get rid of it? None of my rss readers like that.