A Modern Guide to Create RSS Feeds for Your Blog

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An RSS feed is your secret weapon for a direct, unfiltered connection with your audience. Forget trying to outsmart social media algorithms. Think of it as your own private content stream that lets your most loyal followers get instant updates right in their favorite feed reader app. It puts you back in control.

What Is an RSS Feed and Why It Matters Now More Than Ever

Let's cut through the jargon. At its core, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is just a web feed. It lets people and apps grab the latest updates from your site in a clean, standardized format. Instead of someone having to remember to visit your site every day, your new articles are delivered to them automatically.

This isn't some brand-new technology, but it’s having a major comeback. In a digital world where big platforms decide who sees your content and when, RSS is a breath of fresh air. It’s a return to the open, decentralized web where you have a direct line to the people who care about what you create.

The Resurgence of Direct Content Delivery

The beauty of RSS today lies in its sheer simplicity and reliability. When someone subscribes to your feed, you've earned a direct connection. That means every single piece of content you publish is guaranteed to land in their feed reader. Compare that to social media, where your post might only reach a tiny fraction of your followers unless you pay to play.

This direct channel is a game-changer for creators.

Complete Ownership: You control the whole experience, from formatting to delivery. No third-party gatekeepers.

Deeper Engagement: Your subscribers are your biggest fans. This leads to higher-quality traffic and more meaningful conversations.

Algorithm-Proof Distribution: Your content reaches 100% of your subscribers, every single time. You're completely immune to unpredictable algorithm changes.

Effortless Syndication: RSS makes it incredibly easy for others to republish and share your content, helping you earn valuable backlinks and expand your reach.

A Proven Technology with Lasting Power

RSS might feel a bit old-school, but its staying power is undeniable. By 2005, its use had exploded, with over 35 million websites using it to get their content out there. Decades later, it’s still a fundamental part of the web's plumbing.

In fact, recent data shows that 35,126,796 live websites still actively use RSS, with a history of over 77 million sites having used it at some point. You can dig into more of this global data on RSS usage trends from BuiltWith. Its long-standing presence is a testament to how well it works.

For example, a startup could use RSS feeds to track competitors' blogs and industry news, pulling everything into one dashboard. A freelance writer could set up a feed to automatically push their latest portfolio pieces to different platforms, saving time and boosting visibility. These are the kinds of real-world scenarios that show why taking the time to create RSS feeds is a smart move for anyone serious about sustainable content marketing.

Choosing Your Method to Create an RSS Feed

So, you're ready to create an RSS feed. Great move. But you'll quickly find there isn't just one way to do it. The best path for you really boils down to your technical comfort level, the platform you're already using, and how much control you want over the final product.

Don't worry, you don't need to be a developer to make this happen. Let's walk through the main ways you can get a feed up and running.

This simple flowchart gets to the heart of why you'd choose RSS in the first place.

It all comes down to control. If you want a direct, unfiltered line to your audience, an RSS feed is the undeniable winner.

Automatic Feed Generation

For most content creators, this is the path of least resistance—and for good reason. Many of the big-name content management systems (CMS) and blogging platforms automatically generate an RSS feed for you right out of the box.

In fact, you might already have one and not even realize it.

Platforms like WordPress, Ghost, and our own Feather for Notion do all the heavy lifting in the background. Every time you hit "publish" on a new post, the platform updates your feed’s XML file. It's the perfect "set it and forget it" solution if your main goal is to create content, not tinker with code.

Curious if you have one? Try adding /rss.xml or /feed to the end of your blog’s URL. For a site like www.yourblog.com/posts, the feed is probably waiting for you at www.yourblog.com/posts/rss.xml.

Using a Dedicated Feed Generator

But what if your platform doesn't have a built-in feed, or you need more say in what goes into it? This is where dedicated RSS feed generators come into play. These tools are the perfect middle ground, giving you more flexibility than an automated solution without forcing you to get your hands dirty with code.

Services like FetchRSS or RSS.app can spin up a feed from almost any source—a webpage, a social media profile, even a YouTube channel. You just plug in a URL, and the tool scrapes the content to build and host a feed for you.

This is a fantastic option if you're looking to:

Combine Sources: Pull content from different places into one unified feed.

Support Custom Sites: Create a feed for a site that was built from scratch or on a platform without native RSS.

Get More Control: Customize what's included, filter out certain posts, or even add monetization features your CMS doesn't offer.

Manual XML Creation

Finally, we have the DIY route. For developers, podcasters with specific needs, or anyone who wants absolute, granular control, there's always the option of creating the XML file yourself. It’s the most technical path, requiring a solid understanding of XML syntax and the RSS 2.0 specification, but it offers unparalleled power.

When you create a feed by hand, you define every single tag. You can structure it exactly how you want, which is essential for developers integrating content into custom apps or for podcasters who need specific tags to get listed properly in directories like Apple Podcasts. For a deeper dive into how modern platforms deliver content, check out our guide on what is a headless CMS.

Building it yourself gives you the freedom to innovate beyond standard templates and optimize your feed for very specific goals.

To help you decide, here’s a quick breakdown of how these three methods stack up against each other.

Comparison of RSS Feed Creation Methods

Method	Technical Skill Required	Time Investment	Customization Level	Best For
Automatic Generation	None	Minimal	Low	Bloggers and content creators on platforms like WordPress, Ghost, or Feather.
Feed Generator Tool	Low	Low to Medium	Medium	Users with custom sites or those wanting to aggregate multiple content sources.
Manual XML Creation	High	High	High	Developers, podcasters, and users with highly specific technical requirements.

Each method has its place. The "best" one is simply the one that aligns with your skills, your platform, and what you're trying to achieve with your feed.

Building Your RSS Feed Manually with XML

For those who want ultimate control or are just curious about what makes RSS tick, this section is for you. While automated tools are convenient, there's a certain power that comes from rolling up your sleeves and building an RSS feed by hand. This isn't just for developers—it's for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of this surprisingly resilient technology.

Crafting the XML file yourself means you define every single element. You can ensure your feed is perfectly optimized for specific platforms or custom applications. It’s all about building a robust and precise content delivery system from the ground up.

Let's break down the essential pieces you'll need to put together.

Understanding the Core XML Structure

At its heart, an RSS feed is just a simple text file written in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). If you're not familiar with it, think of it like a structured document with nested containers.

The entire thing is wrapped in an <rss> tag, which holds a single <channel> tag. Inside that <channel> tag is where you'll put all the information about your feed, along with multiple <item> tags—one for each of your blog posts.

This hierarchy is the fundamental blueprint for any valid RSS 2.0 feed.

<rss version="2.0">: The root element. This tells everything it's an RSS feed and which version you're using.

<channel>: The main container for metadata about your feed, like its title and a link back to your website.

<item>: A single entry in your feed, like a blog post or a news article. You'll have one of these for each piece of content.

Getting this basic structure right is the most important first step. Everything else just builds on this foundation.

Defining Your Channel's Identity

Before you add any content, you need to define your channel. This is the metadata that tells feed readers what your feed is all about. For your feed to be valid, you absolutely need three elements inside your <channel> tag.

<title>: The name of your feed. Make it clear and descriptive, like "The Feather Blog" or "Startup Growth Weekly."

<link>: The full URL of the website or blog the feed belongs to. For example, https://feather.so/blog.

<description>: A short summary of what subscribers can expect from your feed. This helps people decide if it's for them.

While those are the only required tags, tossing in a few optional ones can really improve the experience. For instance, including <language>en-us</language> helps feed readers display your content properly. While you're working with XML, it's also handy to know about other similar web standards, like how to add an XML sitemap to help Google index your site better.

Populating Your Feed with Items

Each <item> represents a single piece of content in your feed. Just like the channel, every item has its own set of tags that provide the essential details for feed readers to process and display it correctly.

Here’s a quick reference table for the most important XML tags you'll be using.

Essential RSS Feed XML Tags

XML Tag	Purpose	Required?
`<title>`	The headline of your blog post or article.	Yes
`<link>`	The direct URL to the full content on your website.	Yes
`<description>`	A summary or the full text of your post.	Yes
`<pubDate>`	The publication date, formatted according to RFC 822.	Optional
`<guid>`	A globally unique identifier for the item.	Optional (but critical)

You'll notice the <guid> tag is technically optional, but trust me, it's one you should never skip. It’s a unique string—often the post's URL—that tells feed readers whether they've seen an item before. Without a stable and unique GUID, your subscribers might get bombarded with duplicate posts or, even worse, miss updates entirely.

One last critical tip for handling your descriptions: if your blog posts contain any HTML (like links, images, or formatting), you need to wrap that content in a <![CDATA[...]]> section. This tells the XML parser to treat the enclosed text as raw data instead of trying to interpret the HTML tags, which would otherwise break your feed.

This is exactly the kind of granular control that building a feed manually gives you, ensuring a flawless experience for your audience.

How to Validate and Troubleshoot Your Feed

Getting your RSS feed built is a huge milestone, but the job isn't done until you're absolutely sure it works. A broken feed that subscribers can't add to their reader—or one that just shows garbled nonsense—is worse than having no feed at all. Before you go public, you need to kick the tires.

This is where validation comes in. It's basically a quality control check where you run your XML code against the official RSS 2.0 specification. Think of it as making sure your feed speaks the right language so every feed reader out there can understand it. Skipping this is a classic mistake that leads to a ton of frustration for you and your potential readers.

The good news? You don't need to be an XML guru to get this done. There are some fantastic, free tools that will diagnose your feed in seconds.

Using the W3C Feed Validation Service

The undisputed gold standard here is the W3C Feed Validation Service. This tool is run by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organization that sets the standards for most of the internet. It’s reliable, incredibly thorough, and gives you a straight answer: pass or fail, along with exactly what to fix.

Just grab the URL to your feed, paste it into the validator, and let it rip. If everything checks out, you'll get a satisfying green confirmation message. If not, it will spit out a detailed list of every single problem it found, complete with line numbers so you know precisely where to look in your code.

Don't be intimidated if the feedback looks technical. The errors usually point to common, easy-to-solve issues.

Pinpointing Common Feed Errors

When a feed fails validation, the errors almost always fall into a few familiar buckets. Knowing what to look for will help you debug things way faster, whether you built your feed by hand or are trying to fix one that was auto-generated.

Here are the usual suspects I see trip people up all the time:

Incorrect Date Formatting: The <pubDate> tag is notoriously picky. It demands a very specific format (RFC 822). A simple mistake like using MM/DD/YYYY instead of the required Tue, 03 Jun 2023 09:41:00 GMT will break the whole thing. Always double-check your dates.

Improper Character Encoding: Special characters like an ampersand (&), a less-than sign (<), or a greater-than sign (>) will crash your XML if they aren't encoded properly. For instance, & has to be written as &. The best way around this is to wrap your descriptions in a CDATA section.

Missing Required Tags: Every <channel> and every <item> has a set of tags that absolutely must be there. It's shockingly easy to forget a <title> or <link> tag, which will throw an immediate validation error.

Simple XML Syntax Errors: This is the "oops" category. A missing closing tag, a typo in a tag name (like <titel> instead of <title>), or an unclosed quotation mark on an attribute can invalidate the entire document.

Fixing these is usually a quick tweak in your XML file or a setting adjustment in your CMS. Getting these technical details right is crucial for your site's overall health. For a deeper dive into that, our guide on technical SEO best practices has some great insights. A methodical approach to troubleshooting will make sure your feed is solid and reliable for every single subscriber.

Making Your RSS Feed Discoverable and Promoting It

You’ve built and validated your feed. Awesome. But a perfect RSS feed is useless if nobody knows it exists. Now for the most important part: getting it into the hands (and feed readers) of your audience.

This last leg of the journey is all about making your feed easy to find and shouting from the rooftops that it's the best way for people to keep up with your work.

Add Auto-Discovery to Your Site

First up is a simple but incredibly powerful technical step. You need to tell browsers and feed readers where to find your feed file. This is handled by adding a specific <link> tag right into the <head> section of your website’s HTML.

This little snippet of code is the industry standard for what's called auto-discovery. It's what allows apps like Feedly or browsers with RSS extensions to instantly see that a feed is available for the page someone is visiting. You'll often see that familiar orange RSS icon light up in the address bar because of this tag.

Just swap out the title and href with your own details. This one move makes subscribing a seamless, one-click action for anyone who knows what they're looking for.

Go Beyond Auto-Discovery

Auto-discovery is great for the folks who are already looking, but you can't stop there. You have to make your feed obvious to everyone else. Don't bury your RSS feed in the footer like an afterthought; feature it proudly.

Add an RSS Icon: Place the standard orange RSS icon in your site’s header or sidebar, right next to your social media links. It's a universally recognized symbol.

Link It on Your "About" Page: Give your feed a shout-out on your "About" or "Contact" page. Briefly explain why it’s a great way to stay in the loop.

Plug It in Your Newsletter: The people on your email list are already your biggest fans. Let them know they can get your content the second it's published by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Getting your feed visible is a foundational step in content distribution. It's a lot like the process you follow when starting a podcast—you have to submit the feed to all the right directories so people can find your show.

Ultimately, your job is to make subscribing as frictionless as possible. You can dive deeper into the specifics of how to create and display your RSS link to make sure it's dead simple for anyone to find.

Turn Your Feed into a Content Engine

Your RSS feed is more than just a list of articles for your subscribers. It's a powerful engine for content syndication and automation.

By hooking your feed up to other services, you can automatically blast your new content all over the web. This will save you a ridiculous amount of time and manual effort. Think of it as the central hub for your entire content strategy.

Services like Zapier or IFTTT (If This Then That) are perfect for this. They can monitor your RSS feed, and whenever they detect a new item, they trigger an action in another app. The possibilities are practically endless.

Automate Social Sharing: Set up a workflow to automatically tweet, create a Facebook post, or share a LinkedIn update the moment you hit "publish."

Build an Email Digest: Use a feature like Mailchimp’s RSS-to-email campaign to automatically send a weekly or monthly roundup of your latest posts to your subscribers.

Sync with Other Tools: You could get creative and have new articles automatically added to a Pinterest board, posted in a team Slack channel, or even create a new card in Trello for your marketing team to track.

Once you set up these simple automations, every time you create RSS feeds and publish new content, it gets maximum reach with minimum work. That simple XML file just became your secret weapon for growth.

Got Questions About RSS? We've Got Answers.

As you start working with RSS, you're bound to run into a few common questions. This isn't just theory; these are the practical things that come up when you’re actually trying to get a feed working. Let’s clear up some of the most frequent queries people have when they first start to create RSS feeds.

Getting these fundamentals right is the difference between having a simple XML file and a powerful content distribution tool.

What Is the Difference Between RSS, Atom, and JSON Feeds?

You'll see these three names pop up a lot, and it's easy to assume they're interchangeable. They all syndicate content, but they come from different places and have different strengths.

RSS: Think of this as the original and most dependable option. It’s built on XML, and its simplicity has made it universally supported. If you want maximum compatibility with just about every feed reader out there, RSS 2.0 is your safest bet.

Atom: This is another XML-based format, created to be a more modern and technically precise successor to RSS. It solves some of the vagueness in the original RSS spec, but honestly, for most day-to-day blogging, you'd hardly notice a difference.

JSON Feed: This is the new kid on the block. It ditches XML for JSON, which many modern developers find much easier to handle. It's a fantastic choice if you're building a new app from scratch, but it doesn't have the decades of support that RSS and Atom do.

My advice? Stick with RSS 2.0. It guarantees your feed will work flawlessly almost everywhere.

How Do I Add Images or Podcast Audio to My Feed?

One of the biggest myths about RSS is that it's just for plain text. Not true at all. You can easily pack your feed with rich media, which is crucial for everything from eye-catching blog posts to distributing your podcast.

For images, the easiest way is to just drop a standard <img> tag right into your <description> or <content:encoded> element. Most modern feed readers will render it perfectly, displaying the image right in the post.

For podcasts, the <enclosure> tag is your best friend—and it's non-negotiable. This tag lives inside each <item> and points directly to your audio file. It needs three specific attributes to work:

url: The direct link to your MP3 or audio file.

length: The size of the file in bytes.

type: The MIME type, like audio/mpeg for an MP3 file.

This little tag is exactly what services like Apple Podcasts and Spotify look for to pull in your episodes. If you're a podcaster, getting this right is everything.

Does an RSS Feed Actually Help with SEO?

Yes, it does, but in an indirect—and very important—way. Google won't give you a direct ranking boost just for having an RSS feed, but a well-maintained feed is a hallmark of a healthy site, and that sends all the right signals.

Here’s how it helps your SEO strategy: An RSS feed makes content syndication a breeze. When other sites pull in your content, you can earn valuable backlinks. It also helps search crawlers find your new posts much faster than they would on their own, which means quicker indexing.

Most importantly, your RSS feed brings your most loyal readers back to your site again and again. That repeat, high-engagement traffic is a powerful signal to Google that your site has authority and is worth ranking. It’s a foundational piece of any smart content strategy.

Can I Make an RSS Feed for a YouTube Channel?

Absolutely, and it's a fantastic way to follow creators without being chained to the YouTube algorithm. While YouTube doesn't exactly shout about it, every channel has its own RSS feed. You just need to find the channel’s ID and plug it into a specific URL.

This trick isn't just for YouTube, either. Platforms like Instagram or X (formerly Twitter) might not offer native RSS, but third-party tools can generate a feed for just about any public profile. This lets you pull all your favorite updates into one clean, organized reader, putting you back in control.

Ready to stop wrestling with code and start publishing? With Feather, you can turn your Notion pages into a beautiful, SEO-optimized blog with an automatically generated RSS feed. Get your content live in minutes, not days. Check out what you can build at https://feather.so.