how to use Google reader to read blogs

I love Google Reader. I do not like using bookmarks, so Reader just about makes my life complete. I would die without it.

Okay, I’m exaggerating.

But only a little.

This tutorial is really for my mom who doesn’t use Google Reader but needs to. It would make her life complete, too. And also for anyone who reads a lot of blogs but doesn’t already use Google Reader (or something similar). There are other readers out there, but if you already use Gmail, then using Google Reader would be best since you already have a Google account.

So how does it work?

I don’t know the logistics, but in laymen’s terms … it’s a website that pools together all of your blog subscriptions onto one page. So it takes only ONE CLICK to read all of the blogs that you read on a regular basis.

For example, if you read 10 blogs on a regular basis, you have to go to 10 different websites, right? Well, what Google does is pull all of those blog posts into your Reader, and then you only have to visit your Reader to read all new blog posts at once.

This also eliminates the clicking around to see if the blog or website has been updated.

It is really one of the biggest timesavers if you read a lot of blogs.

First things first, I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, and it already has a built-in “subscribe to this page” button built into the url address bar.

I’ll use my blog URL as an example …

That really takes out a lot of legwork in finding the “subscribe” buttons on some blogs. We’ll come back and talk about this in a bit.

First step: sign up for a Google account. Go now. I’ll wait.

*whistle, whistle, whistle*

Done? Okay.

Second step: you’re pretty much done. Now, all you have to do is add the blogs that you want to read to your Reader.

If you use Mozilla Firefox, then just go to one of the blogs that you want to subscribe to, click on the little button in the url bar that has the 3 little lines on it and then click on “subscribe to …”

You should get this page (or something similar) …

Click on “Add to Google Reader”

And then your reader will pop up with all of the new posts listed there for you.

IF you don’t use Mozilla Firefox (you totally should — it rocks!) then just look for a button somewhere on the blog that looks like this …

or a prettier version of this. ;)

That’s pretty much it! I actually have my Google Reader as one of the tabs that opens up when I start Firefox, so reading blogs just couldn’t be easier!

Please feel free to post here with any questions or let me know if I missed anything.

OH! If you need even more help (which is pretty unimaginable – I included screenshots and everything!! *snicker*) then here is a YouTube instructional video …

I’ll do a follow-up tutorial in the next week or so on how to make your Google reader more organized, but one step at a time.