For the initiated it almost seems intuitive and a funny question t ask. For the vast majority of new users, subscribing to an RSS feed is confusing,frustrating and difficult to understand. 

It really is a round about process and poorly designed. Questions from a potential subscriber usually hit in two waves. "What is this RSS? "and "when I click the RSS button I get redirected back to the page" or "I can see a lot of unformatted text."

The process is not about to change in the immediate future and more and more users want to subscribe to various RSS feeds.  I think that we can be pro-active in this regard and make available a description of the "What is ...?" and a good description of "How to ...". It should be right there next to the RSS chicklet and the options for RSS Readers should be stated clearly. It is sad to lose subscribers after working so hard to promote our work simply because they find the subscription process too complex and confusing and the communicating supportive instructions easily created by the web author.

One I have recently come across, on a Mexican food site, has a small box with a question mark and clicking the mark describes the RSS and an outline of the process of how to subscribe. Clicking onto this opens a Tooltip kind of arrangement and describes the process for the user in straight forward language for both generic readers and familiar web-based names of various RSS readers that are commonly employed. This is a clever approach and really takes out the intimidation and hard effort factors immediately. I think worth while considering for all web sites with RSS feeds included.

 Here is the example mentioned:

[?] Subscribe To This Site

This is a functional demonstration so please feel free to have a good orientation around it. 

The text itself is placed in a new separate page of a Yola site for this example and given a name such as RSS. 

There are two (2) blocks of code that need to be placed on this page both in HTML widgets. : 

The first block of code should be set at the highest part of the page:

 

<title>What Is RSS?</title> 

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"> 

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://your web URL/your RSS feed name.rss"> 

 

 

<style type="text/css"> 

body {

font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size:11px;

}

#wrapperRSS {

width:85%;

background:#eee;

margin:12px auto;

}

#explainRSS {

border:4px solid #006;

padding:0 12px;

}

</style>

 

 

The second block of code in a separate HTML widget following the first and containing this code:

 

<divid="wrapperRSS">

<div id="explainRSS"> 

<p style="text-align:center;font-size:50%;padding-bottom:8px;"> 

<a href="#" onclick="window.close()">Close Window</a> 

</p> 

<h2 style="text-align:center;"> 

What Is RSS?

</h2> 

<p> 

Click on any RSS button to get the latest blogs from www.krooclub.com or any other RSS feeds on the Web (they're everywhere nowadays) to get newsfeeds from CNN, BBC, Yola or just about anything else.

</p> 

<p> 

Once you get started, it's like having your favorite parts of the Web come to you. No need to go out and check for updates all the time. No need for bookmarks!

</p> 

<p> 

&quot;RSS&quot; means &quot;Really Simple Syndication.&quot; But that's just a fancy way of saying that you can keep up with all the updates to www.krooclub.com <em>without having to check the site</em> every week to see &quot;what's new.&quot; New pages and updates to old ones are released through RSS.

</p> 

<p> 

<strong>How do you get started?</strong> Just follow these simple instructions!

</p> 

<p> 

Download a <strong>free</strong> RSS Reader first (or skip to the bottom to learn about Web-based readers). These are variations of special software that read the RSS feeds...

</p> 

<p> 

<strong>Windows -- RssReader</strong><br> 

<a href="http://www.rssreader.com/" target="_blank">http://www.rssreader.com/</a> 

</p> 

<p> 

<strong>Mac -- NetNewsWire</strong><br> 

<a href="http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/" target="_blank">http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/</a> 

</p> 

<p>     or you my already have MS Outlook for example which has a reader built in.

</p>

<p> 

Once you're set up, here's all you have to do...

</p> 

<div style="float:right;margin-left:18px;"> 

<img style="border:1px solid #000;" src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image name and type}." width="114" height="50" alt="copy shortcut"> 

</div> 

<p> 

<strong>Right-click</strong> (<em>control-click</em> for Mac users) on the orange RSS button on any page of this site, or any blog or news source that interests you. Select <strong>Copy Shortcut</strong> (&quot;Copy Link to Clipboard&quot; on a Mac), and <strong>paste</strong> that URL into your RSS Reader.

</p> 

<p> 

That's it! You'll be subscribed.

</p> 

<hr style="width:50%;"> 

<p> 

You can also use a Web-based RSS reader, like My Yahoo!, My MSN, or iGoogle/Google Reader. Look for any of these buttons on a page on this site.

</p> 

 

<table width="100%" style="text-align:center;"> 

<tr> 

<td> 

<img src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image1 name and type}."" alt="XML RSS"> 

</td> 

<td> 

<img  src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image2 name and type}."  alt="Add to Google"> 

</td> 

<td> 

<img src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image3 name and type}."  alt="Add to My Yahoo!"> 

</td> 

</tr> 

<tr> 

<td> 

<img src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image4 name and type}."  alt="Add to My MSN"> 

</td> 

<td> 

<img  src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image5 name and type}."  alt="Add to Newsgator"> 

</td> 

<td> 

<img src="http://{website URL}/{Image folder}/{image6 name and type}."  alt="Subscribe with Bloglines"> 

</td> 

</tr> 

</table> 

<p> 

Click on that button to add the RSS feed to that Web-based reader. If you don't yet have an account, you can set up one after clicking on the button.

</p> 

<p style="text-align:center;font-size:90%;padding-top:8px;"> 

<a href="#" onclick="window.close()">Close Window</a> 

</p> 

</div> 

</div> 

For the images labelled "imageX name type", these are for the icons of the various web based readers. You can simply copy them from this post or make your own by searching the relevant sites for their icons.