So what does it mean when you see ‘subscribe to my blog’ or something similar written on a web site?

First, most people associate the word ‘subscribe’ with something you have to pay for. But, in the case of ‘subscribing’ to blogs, feeds, RSS or similar terminology – it is free!

Blogs are a type of web site content that usually gets changed or updated on a regular basis. If there are a lot of blogs you like to read it can be difficult and/or time consuming to go to each of those web sites every day to see if they have anything new added to them. If the blog has a way to subscribe to it, it can make it much easier to keep up.

So how do you subscribe to a blog?

You will need a Feed Reader or News Aggregator software which which will get the information from the blogs and display them in one place for you to read. There are many free web based feed readers available. Personally, I use Bloglines, but I think most people now use Google Reader.

Generally, you just need to click on the subscribe link and it will take you to a page where you choose the feed reader you use and it will add it to your subscribed feeds at that reader. Some blogs will have several different buttons, each for different readers and you can just click whichever one you use to add it. Or, you can right click on the link and copy the link location and manually add it to your feed reader. Whichever is easier for you.

Many blogs will also give you the option of subscribing through email. In this case, just fill in your email address and new posts written in the blog will be sent to you in an email instead.

Most blogs will have their subscribe buttons towards the top of the page to make them easier to find. By default most blog software puts the link down towards the bottom though, so you should look there if you find it difficult to find the feed link. In some feed readers you can also just tell it the url of the blog and it will find the feed for you.

Many blogs will use the universal symbol for RSS feeds:

Some people (like myself) use bigger versions and/or different colors or styles based on that symbol.

Some blogs will just say ‘RSS’ instead.

RSS – sometimes called ‘Really Simple Syndication’ is the type of file format usually used to subscribe to blogs and other types of feeds and many times you will see it used instead of ‘subscribe’.

That should give you a good basic of understanding of feeds, RSS and subscribing to blogs. You can start by subscribing to mine if you want – just look at the upper right hand of the page!

If you want more information about RSS, you can look here or here.