Introduction to RSS Feeds briefly describes what a webfeed is, what RSS is and how it works. Before moving on, you must know a few things about the RSS format.

RSS is as XML format for creating webfeeds. XML is short for Extensible Markup Language which lets the author customize their own tags. RSS format was created using simple tags for distributing news - specifically the headlines. It's a plaint text file - remember this.

A single RSS feed can contain three things:

• Title (The headline)
• Description (very brief summary)
• link (link to the complete story or article)

Step 1 - Beginning

Open a notepad (remember RSS is always a plain text file - so if you are using a Wordpad, you must save the document as plain text only).

Step 2 - XML file

Since its an XML file, first thing to do is declare the same. Copy this line give below onto the notepad:

Step 3 - Open RSS

The second line declares this as the RSS format. Copy this line give below onto the notepad:

Step 4 - Open Channel

Now you need to give some information about your website which is the channel of information. Copy the line below to open the channel onto the notepad:

Step 5 - Channel Title

The first thing is the title of your site. Copy the line given below onto the notepad:

Now, delete Cueblocks Article Feeds and replace it with the title of your site to feed.

Step 6 - Channel Link

Now we need to enter the link to your site. Copy the line given below onto your notepad:

Now, replace http://www.cueblocks.com/ with the link to your own website.

Step 7 - Channel Description

Now we need to enter a brief description. Copy the line given below onto your notepad:

Replace Latest Articles on Internet Marketing with a description that best describes the contents of your feed

Step 8 - Channel Language

This tag defines the language in which the website is written. If it is English, just copy the line give below onto the notepad:

Step 9 - Close Channel

All the basic information needed for the channel is done. Now close the channel by copying this line onto the notepad:

Step 10 - Open Item

Now, you are ready to start entering your feed. Since it is an item, open the item tag by copying the following link to the notepad:

Step 11 - Item Title

Now we need to enter the title of the first news / article. No order here, so we just enter whichever one we want to. Copy the line given below onto the notepad:

Replace Introduction to RSS Feeds with the title of your article.

Step 12 - Item Link

Copy the following link onto the notepad to give the link to the whole article:

Replace the given link with the link of complete article.

Step 13 - Item description

To add the description of your article, copy the line given below onto the notepad:

Now replace the contents within <description>[CDATA[ and ]]</description>with the description that best describes the contents of your article or news.

Note: Notice the space before 'For the author...'- keep that space. Sometimes the feed readers don't display the description correctly if the space isn't there.

Step 14 - Item Publication date

This one is optional. To include the date of the publication, copy the line from below onto the notepad:

Replace the date with the actual date of publication.

Step 15 - Closing the Item

All elements of the item have been stated. To close the item, copy the line given below:

Now, you may have a list of articles to list here. To do that, just copy from <item> to </item> and paste it again below the first item. Replace the contents for the next article. Keep adding more items equal to the number of articles you want to list.

Step 16 - Closing the tags

The feed is complete. Declare the same by copying the following lines after the items onto the notepad:

Notice that you first close the channel and then the RSS because the channel is contained with the RSS and must be closed before the RSS format declaration is.

If you had 5 articles to list, here is how the notepad should look like after completion:

Review your descriptions and titles very closely. Since this one is an XML file, you need to be careful while using quotes ("), apostrophe ('), ‘&’ and other special characters.

Step 17 - Saving the file

Now, save the notepad with a .rss extension.

Step 18 - Uploading the file

The RSS file needs to be uploaded on the server where your website resides - preferably in the same directory as the homepage.

Step 19 - Validate

You must validate your feed using http://feedvalidator.org/ or other such validating services available on the Internet.

Go to the website mentioned and enter the URL of your feed. For example, if you named your feed articles.rss and placed it at the root (same folder as the homepage on the server), then you’ll enter the following URL:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/articles.rss

The validator would either validate your feed or tell you what is wrong.

This completes your RSS Feed creation. You should be able to update the same by removing old feeds and adding new ones.

Avneet Sethi is the co-founder and Director of CueBlocks.com an Internet Marketing firm that helps companies develop and implement successful online marketing strategies.

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