Browser Options

Don't know what is auto discovery? To understand auto discovery you first need to understand how it works. If your blog or web page is auto discovery enabled when someone lands on your page, the browser will notify the reader you have an RSS feed available. If the visitor is interested in subscribing, they will simply click subscribe - much like bookmarking a page. Here's a quick 1 minute video how it works in Firefox.

Now you know how it works, why is it so important? For one, many feed readers and browsers already auto discover RSS feeds. But perhaps what's more important, Microsoft is incorporating this starting with Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer still commands a good chunk of browser share out there, especially those who are new to the Internet or non technical Internet users. If your RSS feeds cannot be auto discovered, it's a good chance you'll lose out on a bunch of subscribers.

As it is today, browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari can auto discover feeds. Many use this to subscribe because it's just so much easier. While this group may not be that large but why should you not take advantage? If just making your feeds auto discovery friendly you get an extra subscriber, even if it's only one it would be worth it because it costs nothing but maybe 2 minutes of your time.

So how do you find out if your feeds are auto discovery friendly? The good news is, if you're using a blog to manage your content, many have this feature built in. But it doesn't hurt to just check it anyway. If you don't use a blog, chances are, your feed is not auto discovery enabled. So here's how you'd add or check it.

Open up your website or blog template, at the top between the tags, look to see if you have one or all of the following code:

If it's not there then just add them. You don't need all of them. As you probably already figured it out, each one of them refer to the feed type you have but since most readers support all of them these days, it really isn't that important anymore. Now, save your template and upload it to your website and that's it. You're all set. Get someone who has Firefox, Opera or Safari browsers to check it.

Before I go, here are two little tips that would help your RSS distribution and subscription using auto discovery. 1. Put the auto discovery tag in other web pages too. Just because it's not a blog doesn't mean you can't have an RSS feed on it. Take advantage of that, put your feed in your main website's template. Now you have two opportunities to get in touch with people. When you update your website and when you update your blog. 2. If you use a service like FeedBurner to track your subscriptions, remember to update the feed URL in your blog or website template. This way, you're capturing all your feed traffic statistics.

Was this helpful? Then pick up your very own copy of the Tech Based Marketing newsletter. You'll learn how to leverage technology and technological trends like RSS. As a matter of fact, you'll get two free originally written reports about RSS (mentioned at the beginning of this article) and Blogging technology when you sign up.

About the author: Lynette Chandler helps entreprenuers just like you implement technology and technology trends in their marketing. She'll put one and one together and spell it out in plain English for you at http://www.TechBasedMarketing.com