Yes! You HAVE an RSS Feed!
One of my coaching students asked me a great question earlier this evening. It was straightforward and honest!
I want to add an RSS Feed to my site so people can sign up for it. I don’t want to worry about them having to come to my site to get my news. Can you recommend a good plugin for that?
If you are using WordPress to run your site, you already have an RSS Feed and you are allowing anyone who wants to get it, to get it!
To see it, just go to https://YourWebSite.com/feed—try it out! For example, the RSS feed for The Ultimate Blog Challenge is https://UltimateBlogChallenge.com/feed. Keep in mind that this is meant for machines to read, not people. When you look at the link, it will not be “nice” to read, but it is just what a computer likes to see.
What is RSS?
RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (depending on the interpretation), is a web feed used to stay updated on specific topics and receive the latest content from various websites. Often referred to as an RSS feed, it typically comes in an XML format or can be viewed as an HTML list when accessed through an RSS reader.
RSS feeds are structured to provide machine-readable information, including details about the publisher and each new content item, arranged in chronological order. Whenever fresh content is posted on a site connected to the feed, the feed updates automatically for subscribers. This ensures that the most recent articles or posts appear at the top of any RSS reader, making it a reliable tool for discovering newly published content.
For instance, if you have an RSS feed linked to your blog, it can be set up to automatically share your new blog posts on your social media accounts. As soon as you publish on your blog, the RSS feed can ensure that the same content is posted on the connected social platforms. This process can also be applied to testimonials, news updates, or any other type of content on your website.
RSS operates on the principle of web syndication, which is the process of sharing content from one site on another. This marketing tactic is widely used by news platforms, blogs, online publications, podcasts, and other reputable content creators.
If you are using Wix as your website, they have instructions that say:
If a blog is hosted on Wix, simply add /blog-feed.xml to the end of the URL.
For example, you can see our blog’s RSS feed at: https://www.wix.com/blog/blog-feed.xml.
This feed is particularly valuable for SEO because it includes the full HTML output for each blog post, which helps to improve indexing in search engines.
I remember in the earliest days of blogging, I was keen on having an RSS feed so much that my then-boyfriend helped me to use it? That’s how I remember it, anyway. What I learned today was the importance of the RSS feed in SEO! I had no idea. My question is this: do I need to activate the RSS feed on my WordPress blog or is it there, simply because it is on Word Press? I would love to have mine set up to send to my social media accounts, too.
I enjoy learning so much – that even this many years after I took the leap from ezines (do you remember them?) to blogging, I am glad to renew my knowledge. Many, many thanks.
It should be there, automagically! Now, if for some reason you disabled it or turned it off, then you will not be ‘broadcasting’ your content. Are you using WordPress or another platform?
PS – I found my feed, I found my feed! LOL Thank you again!
ANd you may not have even known it was missing – LOL. Glad you found it!
Thanks for this interesting and helpful post Paul. I found my feed also! We learn something new everyday.
Hmmm … as this is fairly new to me I don’t know anything about this. lol.