How I Do Web/Blog Reading (2019 Edition)

Today we take a look at a targeted way to read content from the web. I’ll look at RSS readers, and share an even better way to read the content when it’s convenient for you.

Most bloggers will offer free content in exchange for your email address. This is to give them an audience to pitch products and other offers to. There’s nothing new in this – every blogger is told to do this, and I do it myself.

On the flip side, I give people an email address when I am interested in their freebies. After I get the freebie, I generally hang out, reading the first few emails. And then I unsubscribe.

Why I Don’t Use Email

I don’t use email to read blog content. Firstly, this is because it is easier to skim articles on the web, and second, because there always seems to be other stuff in the email.

At best, I get some content that I could get from the website. At worst, I get a series of sales pitch emails that really do nothing other than to try to persuade me to buy something I’m only marginally interested in. (I haven’t seen any blogger other than myself offering exclusive articles to their readers.)

So for the most part, I unsubscribe from the emails and urge you to do so as well.

Unsubscribe!

I recently had a person sign up to my list to get a freebie, and then write me an email apologizing that he was going to unsubscribe, because he used his email for family and a few friends, no exceptions. I think he thought I would be offended. Instead, I applauded his action.

I congratulated him on sticking to his principles. I would rather someone not get my emails than to consistently delete them unopened. Luckily, I have a great group of subscribers, and have an unheard-of open rate of greater than 60%. That means the people that get my emails are reading them at a much higher rate than most bloggers.

Most of my content is available on the web. Reading the one article a month that is only available to my subscribers may not be as important as keeping the inbox noise-free. So I whole-heartedly support any of my readers who decide that they would rather read on the web itself.

So if you don’t get the content in your inbox, how do you get the content you want to read?

Why Surfing Doesn’t Help

Most people will tell themselves that they will go out to the websites they like and read the articles there. They set up bookmarks so that they don’t forget, and work their way through them when they have time.

It’s a good strategy if you just have a few sites to look at. But if you have dozens, this method can get you overwhelmed.

There’s another little secret: when you’re on the website, you are probably being bombarded with links to click: other articles, ads, sidebar content. This can turn a straightforward reading session into a rabbit hole of distraction and lost time.

So what do you do? Enter RSS.

RSS Readers To The Rescue

RSS stands for “really simple syndication”. And it is a way of effectively consolidating all of your blog reading into one place. All you need to have is:

• An RSS reader
• The names/URLs of the blog you want to read

There are lots of RSS readers out there. I prefer Feedly, because I can use it on the web and it was one of the best rated readers when Google Reader died. It has the additional advantage that I can use its iOS app to work with it, making it available on my iPad. Feedly also allows me to organize my feeds in folders, so I can group by topic area.

I hope that the names of the blogs you want to read are self-explanatory. 🙂 But if you need a suggestion, start with mine: https://lauraearnest.com.

Each RSS reader has different features and ways to add blogs. I suggest you start with something simple, like Feedly, and move if you need more functionality.

Secret Weapon: Read Later

Even though I use an RSS reader to bring the information to me, I don’t read the information there. Instead, I save the articles off to Instapaper.

There are two main reasons for this: the first is that Instapaper is a distraction-free reading environment; the second is that pausing to read while I am going through my RSS feeds is a rabbit hole of distraction.

As I go through, I save articles I want to look at (based on their title and excerpt) to Instapaper. Once in Instapaper I can read on my own schedule, and mix up the order if I so choose.

My Process

My blog reading waxes and wanes. Sometimes I get interested in a new topic and add a bunch of new blogs to my list. Other times I get frustrated with blogs that aren’t giving me content I am interested in and unsubscribe.

In either case, this is the process:

• I open up Feedly. Feedly automatically fetches the articles from my feeds that I haven’t read yet.
• I look at the titles, and save to Instapaper. Two touches, and the article goes to Instapaper for a later look. This keeps the processing of the RSS feed and the reading of the article separate – and keeps me on task.
• In Instapaper, I shuffle and read. Instapaper’s clean interface makes it easy to read without distractions. In addition, I can archive, favorite or send it to Evernote (if I want to keep it for reference). I shuffle the articles to keep things fresh. 🙂

Conclusion

Are you surprised that I don’t read articles through email? Most people are. But I find my RSS/Instapaper solution to be precise and distraction free.

— Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash —