RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a way of automatically updating your site visitors whenever you update your website.

As a website owner you must make available an RSS “feed”, which your users can then subscribe to. To do this they have a variety of tools they can use, such as their email program, web browser, or dedicated feed readers.

RSS feeds are usually made available for “latest news” as this tends to be the content which is constantly and regularly updated, although it could be used to keep people updated on any aspect of your site, such as new pieces of work added to a portfolio, or new products added to an online store for example.

Because updates happen automatically this has become a very popular way of driving traffic to a website. With a high number of subscribers websites can use their feeds to drive many visitors back to their website over and over again.

Blogs always have an RSS feed available, look out for the orange radar style image that appears to the right of the website address at the top of the browser. This is a link to an RSS feed which will allow you to subscribe if you have the appropriate software.

Why not subscribe to the Deft blog and see RSS in action…..