Creating a Practical Guide: creating rss feed

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In a world of social media feeds ruled by mysterious algorithms, RSS feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s a beautifully simple concept: a clean, straightforward text file, formatted in XML, that updates whenever you publish something new. For creators, it's a direct, unfiltered pipeline to your audience.

Think of it as taking back complete ownership of your content distribution, whether you're sharing blog posts, podcast episodes, or video updates.

Why Bother With an RSS Feed Anymore?

Let's be honest, RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) can feel like a relic from a bygone internet era, especially when platforms like Instagram and TikTok dominate the conversation. But don't let its age fool you. It remains one of the most reliable and powerful tools a creator can have.

At its heart, an RSS feed is your personal content delivery service. When someone subscribes, they get everything you publish, right when you publish it, in chronological order. No algorithms deciding what they see, no paid ads burying your latest post, and no sudden platform changes that could cut you off from your community overnight. It’s the original "subscribe" button, and it still works flawlessly.

Take Back Control of Your Content

If you're using a modern setup like Notion and Feather to build your brand, you already know how important control is. An RSS feed puts you firmly in the driver's seat in a few critical ways:

Own Your Audience: Your subscribers are yours, period. They aren't just followers on a platform you don't control. You can take that list with you anywhere, ensuring your community stays with you even if you decide to switch things up.

Syndicate Like a Pro: Your feed acts like a universal key for your content. Other tools can plug into it to automatically populate newsletters, cross-post to social media, or even power podcast directories on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Future-Proof Your Brand: Social platforms rise and fall, but RSS is built on an open standard that has been around for decades. Building your feed is a long-term play that ensures your content remains accessible for years to come.

This technology first popped up in the late 1990s as a smart way to wrangle the explosion of websites and blogs. It quickly became a pillar of the open web. And it’s not just a niche tool today; over 35 million live websites still use RSS to get their content out there, which speaks volumes about its staying power. You can dig into more RSS usage statistics to see just how common it still is.

How to Build Your First RSS Feed Manually

While you can lean on modern tools to automate everything, there's no better way to really understand how RSS works than by building a feed yourself, by hand. It's not as intimidating as it sounds. At its core, an RSS feed is just a simple text file written in a specific format called XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

You don't need any fancy software. A basic text editor like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac is all it takes to get started. This hands-on approach pulls back the curtain and demystifies the whole process. Think of it like learning the basic mechanics of an engine before you get behind the wheel.

By building it yourself, you’ll see exactly how your content gets packaged up for the world to see.

This diagram breaks down the direct line from you, the creator, to your audience. The feed is the bridge.

The key takeaway is that the feed itself is what delivers your work directly to your audience, unfiltered. What you create is exactly what they get.

The Basic Structure of an RSS Feed

Every RSS feed follows a standard, predictable hierarchy. It all starts with a declaration line, followed by a main <rss> tag. This tag holds a single <channel> element inside it.

Think of the <channel> element as the main container for your entire publication. It holds all the top-level information about your blog or podcast, along with every individual piece of content you've published.

Inside that <channel>, you'll list individual <item> tags. Each <item> represents a single blog post, podcast episode, or article. It’s a clean, logical structure that’s easy for machines to read.

Here's what that skeleton looks like:

Defining Your Channel

The <channel> element is where you set the stage. It gives feed readers the essential details about your site, and there are three tags that are absolutely mandatory:

<title>: The name of your blog or show (e.g., "The Creator's Corner").

<link>: The full URL to your website's homepage (e.g., "https://yourwebsite.com").

<description>: A brief, one-sentence summary explaining what your content is about.

Getting this part right is like designing the cover of your digital magazine—it provides all the context for the content inside.

Adding Individual Items to Your Feed

Now for the fun part: adding your actual content. Every single blog post gets its own <item> block, nested neatly inside the <channel> tag. Just like the channel itself, each item has its own set of required tags that provide specifics about that piece of content.

These are the must-haves for every <item>:

<title>: The headline of your blog post.

<link>: The direct URL (or permalink) to that specific post.

<description>: A summary of your post, or even the full text.

<pubDate>: The date and time the post was published. This needs to follow a specific format called RFC 822 (e.g., Wed, 02 Oct 2002 15:00:00 GMT).

Once you have your channel details and a few items added, you just save the file with an .xml extension (something like feed.xml works perfectly). And that's it—you’ve just built a valid RSS feed from scratch.

Automating Your Feed With Modern Publishing Tools

While manually building an XML file is a great way to understand how RSS works under the hood, it’s not a practical workflow for a busy creator. Think about it: every time you publish a new article, you’d have to open the file, carefully add a new <item> block, and re-upload it. That’s a recipe for tedious work and human error.

Luckily, you can skip all that. Modern publishing tools have made this entire process completely seamless.

The good news is, if you're using almost any popular Content Management System (CMS), you probably already have an RSS feed. Platforms like WordPress, Ghost, and Substack automatically generate and update one for you right out of the box. This turns content syndication into a background task, letting you focus on creating instead of coding.

This hands-off approach is a total game-changer. It ensures your feed is always up-to-date, properly formatted, and ready for subscribers and other services to pull in your latest work.

Seamless Automation With Notion and Feather

For those of us building our blogs with Notion, platforms like Feather take this automation to the next level. When you publish a new post from a Notion database, Feather instantly updates your site's RSS feed. No files to manage, no code to touch—it just works.

This kind of integration is incredibly powerful because it connects your writing workflow directly to your distribution channels. The moment you hit "publish" inside Notion, your content is packaged into a valid RSS feed, ready for syndication. It’s one of the simplest ways to generate an RSS feed without any technical overhead. For more details on the setup, check out our complete guide on how to publish a site from Notion.

Who Actually Uses RSS Feeds Anymore?

It's easy to think of RSS as old-school tech, but it remains a vital tool for a specific, influential audience. A Forrester-cited study noted that while only about 6% of general internet users actively use RSS, it's heavily favored by professionals like journalists, researchers, and analysts. These power users rely on feeds to cut through algorithmic noise and efficiently track hundreds of sources. Find out more about why professionals prefer RSS feeds.

What does this mean for you? Your feed connects you directly with an audience that actively seeks out high-quality, unfiltered information. By automating your feed, you make sure your content consistently reaches this dedicated group.

Finding Your Feed URL on Common Platforms

Whether you use an automated tool or a traditional CMS, you'll need to know your feed's URL to submit it to readers or connect it to other services. The location is usually pretty predictable.

Here are a few common places to look:

WordPress: yourdomain.com/feed/

Feather: yourdomain.com/feed.xml

Ghost: yourdomain.com/rss/

Substack: yoursubdomain.substack.com/feed

Once you track down this URL, you have the key to unlocking all the syndication and automation possibilities we'll get into next.

How to Validate and Submit Your New RSS Feed

You've just built your XML file, either by hand or with a slick automated tool. Great. But before you pop the champagne, there's one critical quality check left: validation.

Think of an invalid feed as a broken key—it won’t unlock anything. Feed readers, podcast directories, and other services will simply reject it, making all your hard work invisible. This isn't an optional step; it's the final gatekeeper between your content and your audience.

Using a Feed Validator

The undisputed champ for this task is the W3C Feed Validation Service. It’s free, brutally honest, and the industry standard for checking your feed’s code for any structural problems.

To use it, all you need is your feed’s URL. If you saved your file as feed.xml in your website’s main directory, the link would be something like https://yourdomain.com/feed.xml. Just paste that into the validator and hit "Check."

You’re looking for a green banner that says, "Congratulations! This is a valid RSS feed." If you see that, you’re golden. If not, don't sweat it. The validator will give you a specific list of errors and warnings to help you hunt down the problem.

Common Validation Errors and How to Fix Them

After building a few dozen feeds, you start to see the same errors pop up again and again. Most of the time, it's one of these usual suspects.

Here’s a quick troubleshooting table to help you squash the most common validation bugs.

Error Message	What It Means	How to Fix It
`Invalid RFC-822 date-time`	The date in your `<pubDate>` tag doesn't match the required format.	Check the format. It must be `Wed, 29 Nov 2023 14:30:00 GMT`. Look for missing commas, incorrect day abbreviations, or the wrong timezone.
`XML parsing error`	Special characters like `&`, `<`, or `>` are breaking the XML structure.	Replace special characters with their HTML entities (e.g., `&` becomes `&`). Alternatively, wrap your description content in a `<![CDATA[...]]>` section to tell the parser to ignore it.
`Missing channel element`	A required tag like `<title>`, `<link>`, or `<description>` is missing inside the `<channel>` section.	Every feed needs these three core channel tags. Double-check your file to make sure they’re all there.
`Missing item element`	One of your `<item>` blocks is missing a required tag, usually `<title>` or `<link>`.	Go through each `<item>` in your feed. Ensure every single one has, at minimum, a title and a link.

Hopefully, that table helps you diagnose any issues fast. Once your feed is clean, you're ready for the final step.

While you're getting your site’s files in order, it’s a good moment to understand other important XML files. For instance, learning how to make a sitemap gives you a better view of how search engines discover your pages. If you're curious about the structure, looking at an example of an XML sitemap can clarify how it all fits together.

Submitting to Feed Readers

With a validated, pristine feed in hand, it's time to get it out into the world. Submitting your URL to popular readers like Feedly or Inoreader does two things: it proves the connection works in a real-world tool, and it makes your content discoverable to their massive user bases.

Most readers have an "Add Content" or "Follow" button somewhere prominent. Paste in your feed URL, and if it’s valid, your blog or podcast will pop right up, ready for someone to hit "subscribe." This is the moment your simple text file officially becomes a live, dynamic channel for your content.

Putting Your RSS Feed to Work for You

Alright, so you've got a clean, validated RSS feed. Now the real fun begins. It's time to put that feed to work.

Think of your feed as more than just a list of posts for a reader app. It's essentially a live API for your content—a structured data source you can plug into all sorts of automated workflows. This is where you can turn a single blog post into a multi-channel distribution event without lifting a finger.

Creating an RSS feed is a massive time-saver. Forget manually posting your new article to five different places. You can set up systems that do it all for you the moment you hit "publish."

Powering Automated Email Newsletters

One of the most powerful things you can do is set up an RSS-to-Email campaign. Pretty much every major email marketing service—Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Flodesk—has this feature baked in. It constantly monitors your feed, and as soon as it spots a new article, it automatically grabs it, formats it into an email, and sends it to your subscriber list.

Getting this up and running is surprisingly simple:

First, find the RSS campaign feature in your email provider's dashboard. It might be called "RSS Campaign" or "Blog Broadcast."

Next, just paste in your feed's URL (like https://yourdomain.com/feed.xml).

Then, you'll set the schedule. You can have it send an email the minute a post goes live or create a daily or weekly digest of all new content.

Finally, design a basic email template. You'll use special merge tags (they usually look something like *|RSSITEM:TITLE|* and *|RSSITEM:CONTENT|*) that pull in the post's title, content, and link directly from your feed.

Once that's done, every new blog post becomes an instant newsletter. It keeps your audience engaged without you having to do anything extra.

Syndicating Content Across the Web

Your feed is also the key to some seriously powerful content syndication. By plugging it into automation platforms like Zapier or Make, you can build custom workflows that spring into action whenever a new item pops up in your feed.

This opens up a ton of possibilities. For instance, you could automatically:

Share the new post's title and link on Twitter.

Create a draft for a new post on your Facebook Page.

Add a task to your Asana or Trello board to remind your team to promote the article.

Archive a copy of every post in a personal Airtable database.

This strategy goes way beyond just blog posts. The entire podcasting world, for example, runs on RSS. An estimated 584.1 million people listen to podcasts every month, a figure expected to hit 651.7 million by 2027. All of that massive distribution is powered by directories reading RSS feeds to discover new episodes. You can learn more about the current state of podcasting on RSS.com.

To really maximize your feed's impact on your broader marketing goals, it can be helpful to work with an expert. A firm like Web Precision Inc, a trusted web design and digital marketing firm can offer guidance on integrating these strategies. And if you want to dive deeper, we have a whole guide on different content syndication services.

Common Questions About RSS Feeds

Even after you've got your RSS feed up and running, a few questions always seem to pop up. Think of this as the "now what?" section where we tackle the common head-scratchers that creators run into.

Getting these details right helps you understand why you’re doing certain things and how this simple piece of tech plays a much bigger role in your content strategy.

What’s the Deal with RSS, Atom, and JSON Feeds?

You'll see these three names thrown around, and it's easy to get them mixed up. Here's the simple breakdown from a practical standpoint:

RSS: This is the original, the classic, the one everyone knows. Its biggest strength is its simplicity, which is why it's supported by practically every podcast app and feed reader on the planet. For maximum compatibility, RSS 2.0 is the gold standard.

Atom: This came later and was designed to be a more structured and robust version of RSS, fixing some of its quirks. It's technically solid, but it never quite managed to steal the spotlight from RSS.

JSON Feed: The new kid on the block. It ditches XML for JSON, a format most web developers find much easier to work with. It's fantastic for custom projects and API integrations, but it isn’t as widely supported by traditional feed readers.

Bottom line? For most creators, sticking with RSS 2.0 is the smartest and safest bet. It just works, everywhere.

Does an RSS Feed Actually Help with SEO?

This is a great question. While having an RSS feed isn't a direct ranking signal that Google’s algorithm is looking for, it offers some powerful indirect SEO benefits.

First off, a feed makes your content incredibly easy for others to syndicate. When other blogs or news aggregators pull from your feed, they automatically share your latest posts. This often results in valuable backlinks pointing to your site.

It also helps search engine crawlers find your new content way faster. Every time your feed updates and pings different services, it’s like sending up a flare that tells bots, "Hey, new content is live!" This can significantly speed up how quickly your articles get indexed and start appearing in search results.

Can I Have More Than One RSS Feed on My Website?

Absolutely, and you should consider it! It's a fantastic strategy, especially if you cover a few different topics. Many top-tier publications do this by offering separate feeds for each category. For example, a marketing blog could have separate feeds for "SEO Tips," "Email Marketing," and "Social Media."

This lets your audience subscribe only to the topics they truly care about, which is a huge win for them. It leads to way higher engagement and a much better user experience because you're not cluttering their inbox or feed reader with stuff they don't want.

Most modern CMS platforms, including those built with tools like Notion and Feather, can generate these category-specific feeds automatically, so it's often just a matter of flipping a switch.

Ready to stop worrying about XML files and start publishing effortlessly? Feather turns your Notion pages into a beautiful, SEO-optimized blog with a perfect RSS feed generated automatically. Start your free trial today!