If you’re interested in developing RSS feeds for your site, as part of your marketing, it’s a good idea to experience things as a regular user would first.

To read an RSS feed, you’ll need an aggregator, or reader. This basically takes the code that is represented in the RSS feed and turns it into a form that is easily readable - and it means you don’t have to go to a website to get the latest articles or updates. It can be a great time-saver.

There are two main types of aggregators available. They either sit on your desktop, or are web based. An example of a web based RSS aggregator is MyYahoo’s. Some downloadable RSS readers charge a small fee, but many of them are free. You can find a list of rss readers here.

Paid aggregators usually have a few more features that allow greater customization, although both types will let you enter whatever RSS feeds you’d like to. If you’re just dabbling, or starting out, a free aggregator would be the best way to go. And online aggregators are particularly user-friendly.

Once you’ve chosen your aggregator, have a look at the home page, or navigation bar, of a website you like to see if there’s an RSS or XML button. If this particular website doesn’t have one, check out a blog, as these usually have feeds. You can see the feed for this site in the nav bar to the right.

When you’ve found the right code, copy it, and paste it into your aggregator. It will have an area for you to do this.

That’s it! Now, when you open your reader, you’ll be able to see the feed from that site.

If you have a website that you’ve created a feed for, you should submit it to the various RSS directories.