Facebook Instant Articles vs. Google AMP

Over the past 5 years, mobile internet has changed the way we access content. It is now the leading mode of internet access and has overtaken desktop in a way that many wouldn’t have thought possible a decade ago.

As the mobile web evolves, ways of presenting content do, too. One of the biggest issues that internet publishers face now are slow page load speeds. The more time it takes for content to load on mobile devices, the more likely the reader is to bounce, and the less favourably Google looks upon you in terms of SEO.

Both Google and Facebook have come up with solutions to improve the experience for both publishers and readers. But which one comes out on top? Today, we are going to take a closer look at Facebook instant articles (FIA) and Google accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and compare the two together.

 

A brief summary of Amp and FIA

It was 3 years ago, back in 2015, that both Google and Facebook introduced platforms to tackle issues that reduced the user experience for publishers and readers.

Both of them aim to reduce data consumption while increasing the page load speed of online content. This is especially noticeable when it comes to static content such as images and text.

While there is no denying that both offer a similar experience. There are some major differences between the two.

Facebook Instant articles. These are designed to work inside of the Facebook mobile app. It allows users to publish their content directly in the Facebook news feed instead of using outbound links to their website.

By working in this way, it removes the need for readers to leave the social media site. Articles are hosted on Facebook and load up to 10 times faster than a standard mobile web page. Publishers are able to monetise the content that they publish via instant articles.

Publishers also have the ability to customise the branding of their content. This helps businesses and publishers create a recognisable identity for their audience.

Google AMP. This works slightly differently to Facebook instant articles. While Facebook instant articles are only able to be viewed via the Facebook app, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) work in your mobile web browser.

This keeps things familiar. In effect, Google has optimised the entire browsing experience. The only distinguishing feature is that AMP is presented at the top of the SERPs as a carousel.

Both thumbnail images and logos help Google AMP stand out. Which serves to make the optimised content easy to locate and view.

 

How do Facebook instant articles and Google AMP work?

Facebook presents content as HTML5. It uses the same technology found throughout the social media platform to help increase the loading speed of photos and videos.

Facebook claims that instant articles tend to be shared 30% more than traditional mobile web articles. Readers are 70% less likely to abandon the content and it loads up to 10 times more quickly than mobile web-based content.

Google AMP works by eliminating slow loading HTML and JavaScript. It begins to pre-render and cache content before you even open an article. The best way to think of it is like stripped-down HTML. They take the fancy bits out, simplifies it, which makes it faster to load.

Pre-loading content is not a new thing. But Google has amped things up and taken it to the next level. This results in as much as 10 times last data being used while loading content up to four times as fast.

 

Comparing FIA and AMP

While both programs have been created to improve page load speed and user enjoyment, they both still require the publisher to invest a certain amount of time and effort.

So, to help you decide which program is best suited to your business needs let’s take a closer look at ad revenue, ease of use and the potential reach that both platforms offer.

 

Ad Revenue

Facebook presents users with two different options for monetising their content. The first is for those who serve and sell their own efforts. These publishers hold on to 100% of the revenue that is generated by their instant article ads.

The second option that Facebook offers is to place Facebook ads on their instant articles. This earns the publisher approximately 70% of the ad revenue with Facebook lapping up the remaining 30%.

While both of these options are a great way of generating revenue from your content, Facebook does limit the number of ads that can be placed on published content at any given time.

Google AMP is not a business partnership but more of an open-source initiative. Facebook tries to keep users within their app while Google is aiming to change how publishers build and present pages for the mobile web so it’s a better experience for the user.

Publishers using Google AMP earn revenue via AdSense and AdX demand. The amount of income generated depends on the type of ad shown to the user and the ad network used. There are now more than 100 different ad networks that support AMP. This means that you have plenty of options available at your disposal.

 

Ease of use

Facebook allows publishers to manage their instant articles content via their existing CMS. This means that all of their website content can be syndicated with Facebook instant articles by simply flipping a switch.

The simplicity of the program is definitely one of its biggest selling points. There is no need to modify your current website content in any way whatsoever. It basically uses an RSS feed to publish content automatically to Facebook instant articles. Gone are the days of manually publishing content on your page.

Google is not quite as user-friendly. By disallowing JavaScript and iframes, publishers basically need to recreate the content again removing these types of tech.

JavaScript and iframes are the foundations of the majority of modern websites. Having to create parallel content drastically increases the number of resources and effort that the publisher needs to invest.

While this may seem like a negative, it is clearly having little impact on AMPs popularity which currently far outranks Facebook when it comes to providing external traffic to publishers websites.

 

Platform reach

When it comes to reach, both Facebook and Google are on a pretty level playing field. It is estimated that approximately 20% of all time spent on the internet is spent on Facebook.

Google serves almost 4 billion searches each and every day and is the largest search engine in the world. It is clear that the sheer volume of the audiences that both cater to is significant.

The best way to work out which platform is best for you is to look at how your current audience accesses your content. Is the majority of your content found via social shares or through organic searches? This is one of the best ways to work out which is your best choice.

It is also important to note that there is nothing stopping you from publishing via both of them. Of course, this will increase the amount of time and resources you need to invest. However, it will give you the best of both worlds.

 

Conclusion

It is no secret that Facebook tends to dominate everything that it turns its hand to. However, it is rapidly falling out of popularity with publishers for several different reasons.

The fact that Facebook is prioritising visual content such as videos and imagery over text-based content is putting off many potential customers.

Publishing giants including the BBC and National Geographic have both already pulled out of Facebook instant articles.

Google, on the other hand, is heading in a different direction by opening up the world of the mobile web and providing more ways to monetise content.

The two web giants will undoubtedly keep battling it out to be crowned the king of content publishing. But for now, Google AMP is definitely leading the way when it comes to publisher satisfaction, monetisation options and flexibility.

Article first published here: Facebook Instant Articles vs. Google AMP

How to set up Facebook Instant articles?

Okay, so you have decided to enter the world of Facebook Instant articles. But you’re not quite sure how to get started. If you are still not quite sure what Facebook Instant articles are, check out our Facebook instant articles guide.

If you already have a good idea about what they are and are ready to jump in feet first, our tutorial will guide you through the process. It may seem complicated at first. But once you know what you’re doing, things become much easier.

 

1- Your Website

Before you can get started with the registration process for Facebook instant articles you need to have your own website in place. This can be your own self-hosted website, a WordPress website or a blog site.

Let’s hedge our bets and assume you’re using WordPress as their CMS. That’s a broad assumption, but let’s face it, WordPress powers 30%+ of all websites on the internet. If you are using WordPress, you need to have the following in place:

• A Facebook page for your website
• The page app for your Facebook page
• A minimum of 10 articles on your website
• The WordPress plugin for instant articles

If you have all four of these things already in place then you are ready to apply for the instant articles program. This can take a little bit of time to do and is not instantaneous. However, once you have been approved for the program, you are well on your way to easier publishing.

 

2- How to sign up for Facebook Instant articles

The first thing that you are going to need to do is to visit the Facebook instant articles website. From here, click on the “sign up” button.

You will be asked to choose a page for your instant articles. Select the Facebook page that is associated with your website. Then check the agreement box for the terms and conditions and select the button “access instant articles tools.”

You will be directed to the publisher tools section on the Facebook page you intend on publishing with. You will notice that there is now a section for instant articles.

It is now time to confirm that you own your website to by confirming and claiming your website URL. To do this, scroll down to the claim your URL section, copy the snippet of code and then paste it into the header section of your website.

If you are using WordPress, you can use the instant headers and footers plugin instead of editing the header.PHP file of your child theme. Go ahead and activate the plugin, then head to settings, insert headers and footers and paste the snippet of code into the header section.

Save all of your changes and then head back to the Facebook page publisher tool section. Paste your website URL beneath the code that you had to copy earlier. Then click on the button to claim your URL.

 

3- Add the instant articles RSS feed

Head back to your WordPress website and search for the instant articles for WP plugin. Install and activate plugin to generate the feed for your instant articles.

Switch back to Facebook and had to the production RSS feed section. Click on expand and then insert your website URL followed by:

https://www.websitename.com/feed/instant-articles

If you have done this correctly, you will see the success message stating that you have successfully set up your instant articles RSS feed.

 

4- Creating the Facebook page app

Now you are ready to head over to the Facebook For Developers site. On the drop-down menu, click on the “add a new app” button. When the pop-up screen appears, select your website.

On the wizard, enter the name for your Facebook app. This is purely so that you can identify the app quickly and easily from within the control panel. Hit the button that says “create new Facebook app ID”

Enter your email address and choose your app category. Select create app ID, and your app will be created. You can find information about giving up on start page. Enter your WordPress website URL and then press the next button.

That is everything that you need to enter, and you can skip the quick start tutorial by clicking on the button located in the right corner at the top of the page.

You will now be taken to the dashboard for the app where you can get your app secret key and ID by clicking on the show button. Before copying the keys, it is time to set your app to live and public.

 

5- Going live with your app

On the app review screen, you will notice that the app is showing as being under development mode. Simply toggle the button to yes. Hey presto, your app is now live.

Head back to the app dashboard and copy the App secret keys and ID. Once you have done this, the next thing to do is to head back to WordPress.

On the settings page for the instant articles WP plugin and paste the app secret keys and ID in the required sections. Once you click on continue, you will be taken to a button to log into your Facebook page.

Agree to all of the permissions. After this step, you will once again be redirected back to WordPress. Select your Facebook page in the drop-down menu, and everything is connected.

 

6- Create branding and style for your instant articles

Back on your Facebook page, head to the publishing tools section on your admin bar and then select configuration in the instant articles section on the left-hand menu screen.

Locate the tool section and then select the style tab. Facebook will have already added a default style. This is ready to be customized.

Simply click the default style to open the pop-up window. Here you can add your logo, which needs to be a transparent PNG that is a minimum of 690 x 132 px.

You can also select your preferred background color and accent colour from this menu. Once you have made all of your desired adjustments, save your work and click on the “done” button.

 

7- Submit article feed for review

Before moving on to this step you need to make sure that you have a minimum of 10 articles showing in your instant articles feed.

If you have more than 10 articles on your website and they are not showing in the feed, simply make a minor edit to each article post and then click the save button to update them.

Locate the publishing tools section on your Facebook page and head to the configuration link. You can find this belief the instant articles section on the left-hand side of the screen.

On the configurations setting page, find step two, submit for review. If you have done everything correctly, you will notice that the submit for review button is available. Click on it, and your feed will be sent for review.

And that’s about it. As soon as Facebook has reviewed your feed and approved, it will become available and start working is Magic. Now the hard work is out the way and any content that you publish to your website will automatically be published on Facebook.

No more manual publishing to Facebook. No more slow loading times for your content. No more hassle. While it may seem like a lot to have to do to get it up and running. Once it is, life becomes much easier.

Article first published here: How to set up Facebook Instant articles?

Should My Business Page Use Facebook Instant Articles?

Facebook Instant articles have been around a few years now, but many people are still unaware of them. In case you feel out of the loop about them, we are here to help you catch up.

If you have only just discovered instant articles, you can check out our recent blog post to find out exactly what they are. To briefly summarise Instant Articles, it is basically a platform that distributes your recently published content directly on Facebook via the mobile app.
 
Should you use Facebook Instant Articles on your Facebook business page?
 
There are currently two different schools of thought on this subject. We will take a look at both of them so that you can make up your own mind, but it definitely has its benefits.

 

The positives

• The benefits of using Facebook Instant Articles are plenty. The fact that instant articles load 10 times faster on mobile devices than standard web pages means that your audience is more likely to spend longer looking at your content. There is also an average of a 20% increase for the click-through rate on Facebook instant articles.
• Slow page load speeds lead to an increase of bounce rates. People have little patience when it comes to page load times. In fact, a delay of just one second can lead to a conversion loss of up to 7%.
• You are able to monetize your content. If you display your own rich media ads, you are able to keep 100% of what you earn. You can also monetize using the Facebook Audience Network display ads which can earn you up to 70% additional revenue.
• You can brand your content. This means that you can control logos, fonts and colours. As online publishers know, creating a familiar brand identity is an important part of building your audience.
• You can offer your readers an immersive full-screen experience. This can include interactive maps, tilt to pan photographs, audio captions and autoplay videos.

 

The not so positives

• As is true with all internet platforms, algorithms can and do change. This means that you are at the mercy of Facebook, and any future changes that they make may have a direct impact on the effectiveness of your instant articles.
• You are limited with the number of ads that you can show on your instant articles. While it is true that you get to keep 100% of ad revenue for your own ads, that restrictions can limit the amount that you can earn from them.
• The amount of visitor traffic to your website can decrease as your audience spend time looking at content hosted on Facebook instead. Of course, this is not always such a bad thing as your online exposure can increase tenfold.
• Certain types of media and content may not display correctly. You also lose the ability to use forms, newsletter sign-ups and certain types of embedded content.

 

Why it’s a good idea

Providing engaging content for your audience on your Facebook business page is always going to be advantageous.

Once you have everything set up with Facebook Instant Articles, you can have fresh content published without the need to manually upload articles to your business page.

This not only saves you a huge amount of time and effort but also streamlines the entire process. Of course, a fair amount of work up front is required.

To join the program, you need to have a minimum of 10 articles ready to be published. These are then submitted to Facebook for review. If they follow the community guidelines, then you will be good to go.

Instant articles are far more likely to retain your audience and the rate of abandonment decreases dramatically. When combined with monetization, it is a great way to generate a passive income from your content.

Lastly, having relevant, up-to-date and regular content posted on your business page can create a knowledgeable and professional image. The more content you have, the more likely you are to grow your audience.

 

A few more reasons

Slow page load times are one of the main reasons why people bounce. While bounce is not necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that you have one less conversion.

Facebook Instant Articles are a pre-built platform that does all of the hard work for you. It increases page load speed, thus improves the likelihood of increasing audience retention and growth.

While branding efforts may be limited when compared to using your own website, they are there, nonetheless. For some, this may be a big deal but for the majority of publishers, it is simply a minor annoyance.

 

The way forward

Once you are ready to Implement Facebook Instant Articles on your business page, you need to prepare at least 10 articles in advance. You can do this by repurposing content on your website or by producing 10 fresh pieces of content.

You will also want a plan of action in place for future content. Try to keep things relevant to your industry but keep it interesting enough to pique people’s interests. There is a fine line between success and spam. Clever writing is key.

Aside from having a minimum of 10 articles ready to go, you also need a Facebook business page and the Instant Articles app. You also need an RSS feed that will sync your content and publish it to Facebook automatically.

There is no denying that Facebook is the most used mobile application in the world. By not using instant articles you are missing out on lots of opportunities and in such a competitive world, can you really afford to do that?

 

Final thoughts

Yes, there are limitations to Facebook Instant Articles. And yes, for some people it may not be the perfect choice. However, the way to look at it is that Facebook is just one of the hundreds of different platforms that you can use as part of your digital marketing efforts.

When people are searching for content on Facebook, they typically want to stay on Facebook. Trying to direct them to your website with external links can be like trying to empty the water out of a sinking boat with a sieve.

And the fact that content loads up to 10 times faster means that your audience is much more likely to not only spend more time engaging with your content, but also increases the click-through rate of your other content.

It is always a good idea to explore all avenues that you have available to you. Facebook Instant Articles are an amazing way to improve your business page visibility while removing the bulk of the hard work normally associated when doing so.

Article first published here: Should My Business Page Use Facebook Instant Articles?

What Are Facebook Instant Articles?

Facebook instant articles are available for both large and small publishers. Unlike many of Facebook’s other features; instant articles are not something that can be put into action right away. A little bit of preparation and legwork is required. But, is it really worth the effort? Today we are going to look at the pros and cons of Facebook instant articles, what they are and the steps to take to join the program. Hopefully, helping you to better understand how they work.

 

About Facebook Instant articles

Facebook developed instant articles as a way of solving issues with poor load speed on mobile devices. In effect, it is basically an HTML5 document that has been mobile-optimized for use on both Android and iOS devices.

From a publisher’s perspective, it allows for the reader experience to be enhanced. The need to use links to direct readers to their website has been eliminated and content can now be hosted directly on Facebook.

Facebook also makes it possible for publishers to completely monetize their instant articles. Directly sold ads, rich media and branded content can be used with the publisher keeping 100% of the revenue.

Publishing is, after all, a business. And at some point or another, monetization needs to enter the equation. Facebook instant articles allows publishers to retain control over their data, their ads and the overall experience.

 

Why are Facebook instant articles important?

Facebook and Facebook Messenger are the two most used apps across both Android and iOS platforms. One of the biggest issues that publishers face is convincing people to leave Facebook to read content on their own personal website.

As Facebook is the most used mobile application for content consumption in the world, chances are that your audience already uses it on a regular basis. The great thing about this is that you no longer need to try to convince your readers to navigate away from Facebook to read your content.

 

How do Facebook instant articles work?

Facebook instant articles work by syndicating the content that you publish on your own CMS automatically. This eliminates the need for you to republish your content on Facebook. Each time you post content on your site, it undergoes a review process. The review process checks to make sure that the correct formatting is used as per the community standards.

From a user’s perspective, those using mobile devices have the ability to be able to share instant articles on Facebook. However, the actual experience for those who click on links that have been shared can vary. There are two possible outcomes. The first is that the user is redirected to the website to view the content. The second is that the user will view the Facebook instant article directly on Facebook.

Ultimately, it all boils down to whether the user is using a mobile device or a desktop computer. Mobile devices will always be connected to the Facebook instant article. Desktop users will more likely be redirected to the publisher’s website.

One thing to bear in mind is that users mobile devices will not be redirected to your website. Therefore, referral traffic from Facebook will not be displayed. If you want to gauge the overall visitor counts and traffic to your Facebook Instant articles, you can use Google Analytics.

 

Pros and cons of instant articles

 

What are the pros of Facebook instant articles?

• Loading speed is up to 10 times faster than traditional mobile browsers.
• People are less likely to abandon the article.
• An average of 20% more instant articles are read.
• Users are more likely to share content with their Facebook friends.
• Customized visual display and branded designs available.
• Storytelling capabilities combined with rich media options.
• Instant articles can be automatically generated.
• Makes it possible to monetize instant articles for Facebook mobile users.

 

What are the cons of using Facebook instant articles?

• Unable to implement widgets, email forms, side bars, short codes and custom fields.
• Embedded content may not display correctly.
• Options to encourage users to sign up for newsletters or subscribe are limited.
• Publishers exposed to algorithm changes on the platform.
• Difficulty creating a connection between the publishers platform and content.

 

Things needed to set up Facebook instant articles

To successfully set up Facebook instant articles, there are a few things that you need to have in place. You will most likely already have some of these steps taken care of.

• The first thing that you will need is a Facebook page.
• You will also need the Facebook pages app. This lets you preview your articles on a mobile device.
• To automate content publishing, you need an RSS feed that displays your article content in its entirety.
• To join the Facebook instant articles program, you will need at least 10 articles ready to be submitted for approval. Writing lots of fresh and unique content is vital.
• A Facebook business manager to help support your instant articles.

Understanding the type of articles to upload is also an important factor. If you have long-form content that contains infographics, charts and diagrams then it is probably best suited for desktop viewing. A good way to understand what type of content is a good fit for Facebook instant articles, check out some of the publishers who already use the program to see what works best.

 

Why use Facebook instant articles?

In a nutshell, it makes good business sense, along with improving the overall reader experience. When your audience knows that the content is going to load quickly and easily, they are more likely to check out your content. You have complete control over which articles are published to Facebook. If an instant article doesn’t have the impact that you had anticipated, you can unpublish it with the click of a button.

How many times have you personally visited a website and left because it is taking too long to load? All too often, publishers neglect the page load speed, which ultimately leads to the reader closing the page before it’s even had a chance to open. Facebook instant articles remove this hurdle by optimizing and loading your content in the blink of an eye. This results in more people viewing your content, thus increasing the amount of revenue that you can earn from monetizing it.

Article first published here: What Are Facebook Instant Articles?

What is an RSS feed and how does it work?

Keeping up to date with all of your interests on online can be a real challenge. There are lots of ways that people try to do it. These range from checking social media, going from site to site everyday and bombarding Google with a thousand different search terms. Sure, these are all viable options if you have time to kill. However, if you don’t have the luxury of having hours to spend trying to find what it is you’re looking for, then it’s time to turn to RSS feeds.

Those of you who are familiar with dial up internet access (which sounded like a dying robot having one last seizure) were around when RSS was first launched. Gone are the days of worrying about mum using the house phone and cutting off the internet connection. The internet has advanced rapidly and so have RSS feeds. In the past, RSS feeds used to dominate the world of site searching. That was until the arrival of social media.

While seen as outdated (even Google doesn’t like supporting RSS feeds), they still serve a purpose. In fact, this overlooked mode of getting all of the important information delivered to your device is still superior to social media in many ways.

 

What exactly is RSS?

Depending on who you ask, RSS can mean Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Whatever people call it; it is basically a way of delivering updated content in the form of video, images and simple text files. These are then fed into a feed reader that converts them into a stream of relevant and updated content from around the internet and delivers it directly to your device.

As the internet evolved, so did RSS files. Those who were using RSS feeds in the beginning would have received simple, stripped-down information on their desktop via a feed reader. Today, the concept is the same but all types of media are now delivered. The simplicity of the files is still in place to help content remain compatible with all types of feed readers.

 

How do RSS feeds work?

When using RSS, it is important to note that not every website uses it. But the good news is that many sites still do. So how exactly does an RSS feed work? Here’s the lowdown on it.

The first thing that is needed is an RSS reader. These are available as apps, extensions and files available to download online. There are definitely more options available for desktop devices, but mobile devices also have their own fair share of RSS readers and apps.

Then you head to your favorite website and look for the RSS link. If you can’t find it, press Ctrl + F

And type RSS into the pop-up box. You can also search Google using the site name and adding “RSS” at the end of the search phrase.

If the site has an RSS feed, simply copy and paste the URL into your RSS reader. Rinse and repeat the process with all of your favorite websites.

Pretty simple, right? Well, it keeps on getting better. Once you have everything set up, all of your feeds will appear in one location. The RSS feeds can be arranged into separate folders and alerts can be set to notify you about feed updates that are important to you. No more spending an eternity searching for the content that you want. Fire up your RSS reader, and bam, exactly what you want appears right in front of your eyes like magic.

 

What are the benefits of RSS feeds?

When you add an RSS URL to your reader, you are, in effect, subscribing to their feed. Information will keep being delivered to your RSS reader all the time that you remain subscribed. If you get bored of seeing content from any of the sites that you have subscribe to, all it takes is the click of a button to unsubscribe. But how exactly can an RSS feed benefit you?

RSS feeds are superior to social media feeds. RSS feeds don’t push paid content or irrelevant content onto your device. It allows you to see all content as it is published meaning you don’t miss out on a single thing that is important to you.

Reading your favourite blogs. RSS feeds are the ultimate way to keep up-to-date with your friends and families blogs. You won’t ever have to worry about missing a blog post again. They type away, publish it appearance on your device almost instantly.

Latest news and politics. If you like to be kept up-to-date with breaking news and politics then an RSS feed can deliver the freshest content to your reader. Whether you want the latest gossip on Kim Kardashian (Don’t groan like that! She just popped up in a feed right now, that’s why we used her as an example… promise!) or specific news stories from a certain country, RSS feeds are the way to go.

Wallpaper updates. If you are one of those people who needs to change their desktop wallpaper every single day, then an RSS feed is the perfect way to get the latest images from around the world. Like a picture that you see? Click on it, right click on it and set as wallpaper. Simple.

Inspirational quotes and jokes. If you live for inspirational quotes or want to start your day with a laugh, an RSS feed can deliver these to you every morning.

Travel and weather. If you are about to head off on holiday, keeping up to date with the currency exchange rates and local news can save you a small fortune and keep you safe. Regular currency exchange updates can help you work out when the best time is to exchange those dollars for maximum value.

Interests and hobbies. Everyone has a hobby or at least something that they love to do (which is basically a way of having a hobby without admitting to it) whether it’s gardening, DIY, baking or dog training you can have useful advice and Snippets of interesting conversations sent straight to your device for your perusal.

 

Wait! But didn’t you say RSS was outdated?

In a way, yes. But not outdated as in irrelevant. Outdated as in “not as modern” as social media feeds. For many people, social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr have become the go-to alternatives to RSS feeds. While these modern-day sites may reign supreme, in effect, they are basically RSS feeds on steroids.

It may come as a shock to some, but not everyone uses social media. By the end of 2017, some 4.1 billion people used the internet. This is two-thirds of the world’s population. With approximately 2.23 billion people using social media, that leaves almost 2 billion not using it. Ultimately, there is a huge market out there for RSS and any website not using it is missing out on potential customers and followers. And not just a handful, but almost half of all active internet users.

If you take a look at podcasts, weather channels and YouTube channels you will notice that they are almost identical to RSS. As an example of what we mean, every time you login to YouTube, any channel that you are subscribed to will pop up on your home screen with recent content featuring first. Basically, by subscribing to a YouTube channel you are showing an interest in its content. This is also shown in the “recommended for you” tab that features similar content (well, it tries anyway.). RSS may be old, and for many youngsters, may be a mystery. But it is everywhere you look, be it an actual RSS feed or a mirror-image of it used in social media.

 

OK, so what are the best RSS feed readers then?

There are literally hundreds of feed readers available to download. Of course, the type that you download will largely depend on the device that you want to install it on. Let’s take a quick look at six of the best feed readers to use in 2018.

Feedly. Feedly is the Google of the RSS world. There were two versions available. The first is the free version, which while restrictive at times is still fully functional. The second is the paid version which unlocks any limits found with the free version. The user interface is extremely easy to use and there are plenty of third-party app integration options. It allows you to personalize your feed, search for content and add content to a “read later” folder.

The old Reader. Don’t let the name mislead you. There is nothing old about this reader and the name simply hints at the simplicity it provides. It packs a powerful punch and is a truly robust feed reader. Launching back in 2013 just as Google decided to kill their own reader, it has become one of the most popular alternatives on the web. You can also connect your Google and Facebook accounts to discover what your friends are reading and import OPML files to access feeds from other platforms.

Inoreader. Another RSS reader that decided to take over where Google left a gap, it is an easy-to-use reader with a twist. Rather than simply seeing your feed as one long list, you can organise everything into different cards. The search bar allows you to type in your favorite websites, keywords or enter the URL of an RSS feed and it will show related content alongside exactly what you are searching for.

Feeder. If Feedly is more complicated than you had anticipated, then Feeder is the perfect alternative. You can have up to 10 different RSS feed columns and can select the simple view for multimedia and text content or the full view for a rich, full web page within the reader itself. Organising your content into folders is easy and is performed on automatically once you have set up your filters. Again, you can upload OPML files to access feeds on other platforms.

Flipboard. For those searching for an RSS feed app, Flipboard is among the most popular. The user interface is easy to navigate and features a magazine-like style. You can add your interests and favorite topics via the “what’s your passion” section. Overall, the entire layout of the content that you receive makes it a joy to read.

Feedreader online. Having been around for over a decade, feed reader is one of the ultimate RSS feed readers out there. Being a web-based reader means that it works across all devices. Whether you are using a Mac, Windows or Android the feeds keep on flowing. One thing that we know you’re going to love is the fact that it is free. What could be better than a universally usable feed reader that doesn’t cost a cent to use?

 

So RSS feeds are worth revisiting?

Absolutely! It doesn’t matter if you are a publisher or a reader looking for content. RSS feeds are definitely not on the shelf just yet. There are literally hundreds of different reasons to use RSS. Of course, the most important is the fact that as we said earlier, almost half of all internet users don’t use social media.

These people are the ones that are most likely to use an RSS feed to keep up-to-date with their interests. Can you really afford to be missing out on so many people? And even if you can, how many of them are already loyal to your brand or business? Keep them in the loop and don’t ditch RSS just yet.
And for those of you out there who are actually interested in Kim Kardashian! RSS feeds will keep you in the loop every time she decides to “break the internet.” The bottom line (no pun intended.) Is that RSS enriches user enjoyment and from a business perspective, allows everyone to keep up-to-date with your content regardless of whether they use social media or not.

Article first published here: What is an RSS feed and how does it work?