can't install subscribe button/rss feed

Mac machine, google chrome, Genesis/Prose. I am not at all code savvy.
I’m having trouble installing a ‘subscribe’ button. Have tried internal widget and external plug-in ‘simple sociaI’. Have tried both the (…/feed/…) rss ending to my URL and (… /feed/rss/ …). Have tried community forum and only get beginner’s answers for things I’ve already tried. Can’t find where to get into source code, and am scared to do so.
Internal widget put orange concentric quarter-round icon in the footer, but it only produced page of gobbledygook code at first, with a “This XML file does not appear to have any style information” error message at the top. Now it returns me to the post, seeming like it may have worked, except that it didn’t.
Aside: Is there another way of testing it myself without enlisting the aid of friends, posting attempts one at a time to tell me if a followed post arrived to their machines? I have another yahoo mail account and a gmail account, but can’t tell if it works since the ‘follow’ function doesn’t work.
Thanks for helping to end a real frustration.
Laura in New Orleans