Overview

Google Reader is a tool designed to help you organize and share online publications. Google Reader provides all the tools required to manage several syndicated publications in a single location for syndication as an aggregated content feed.

Setting up Google Reader

To get started you must create a Google account; you can use an existing account if you have one but if the purpose of this Google reader account is specifically to syndicate content on your website it is a good idea to set up an account dedicated to this purpose. I recommend using the webmaster, or info account as the e-mail address.

To log-in or set up an account visit: http://reader.google.com/

Subscribing to Content

Once you have set up your account you can start using Google reader by subscribing to content. There are several ways to subscribe to online syndication's; if you know the URL of a specific feed you can enter it directly using the “Add a subscription” button.

Or, if you want to search for syndication's related to a specific topic you can use the “Browse for stuff” tab.

This is a great way to discover new and interesting articles from all over the web related to specific topics or key words!

Organizing Content

After you have added some subscriptions to Google Reader it is a good idea to organize them into folders so that you can publish multiple subscriptions as a single syndication. To set up folders look for the “Subscriptions” section in the left menu and select the “Manage Subscriptions” option from the drop down.

This option brings you to a new screen that lists each of your subscriptions. On the right side of the screen you will find the folder settings in the form of a drop down. Select “Change Folders…” to add a subscription to an existing folder or create a new one.

Syndicating Content with Google Reader

Google Reader gives you the ability to create several syndication's and there are many ways to manage and organize these feeds. If you want to create a general feed of content you subscribe to it is a good idea to place the subscriptions in a folder which you can make public from the settings menu under the “Folders and Tags” tab.

Each folder you’ve created will have an RSS icon that you can click to switch between public and private. To see shared content for a specific folder click the link to the left that says “view public page”.

Once you browse to a public page displaying a folder you’ve created you view the RSS feed that is created for that page by clicking the RSS icon on your browser. Almost every browser uses the same orange icon but it can be located in different places.

You will know that you are viewing a feed because the text and layout of the document will be very basic and your browser will no longer present the RSS icon.

The RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is what you will want to use to republish the content you’ve subscribed to.