What Is Google Reader
Learning how to use Google Reader can be a a little daunting at first look, although once you have played around in it for a while, it’s not that scary. First things first though, what is Google Reader? Well the technical definition as per Wikipedia is that it is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline.
In laymen terms though, Google Reader is a browser based interface that allows you to at its bare minimum have any RSS feed delivered to your account so you never have to miss anything ever again. You get to choose what RSS feeds come in, and the places you can have your feeds coming in from is staggering. Not only can you have your favorite blog feeds coming into your Reader, you can also have Twitter updates, Diggs, Facebook updates, Squidoo and many many more.
Why would you want to have all these feeds coming into your Google Reader you may ask. Well it makes life a lot easier for a start, so you do not have to keep checking out your favorite blogs to see if there have been any updates, as the feed will automatically come through to your account.
There is also the ability to share articles you like with your Google Reader friends. Your Google Reader friends will be people that you have chosen to share with, and there are settings in the Reader so you can specify whom you share with. Typically, all your Gmail chat contacts will be there for you to choose who you want to share with.
Sharing On Google Reader
As we know, Google is King, so when they install features on any of their products I sit up and take notice. Google Reader is big on sharing content. Say you like an article you have read from within your Reader account, you will then have the option to share this with your Reader contacts (like a mutual friend). You also now have the ability to make comments on the article in your Reader also, and for others to be able to comment as well once you have decided to share something.
The way I see it, is that Google is going to start using this facility to add weight to SERP’s in the future, if not already doing so. So the more times an article gets shared in Google Reader, then Google will see this and the article would receive a nice boost in organic search results.
That’s enough for today on how to use Google Reader. There are other uses of it that I will share with you soon, and also how to use Google Reader to your advantage for SEO purposes too.
One more thing, be sure to click the big ‘Add To Google Reader‘ button over on the right of this article, so you can be guaranteed that you will never miss one of my posts. As soon as I publish my articles, they will be in you Reader account.
