Why Bloggers Use RSS Feed?

We are in the middle of 2024 and I am starting a new blog entitled, "FitDadBod". This blog will try to feature articles that will reignite every middle-aged Father's passions and let them avail of physical and mental benefits, like reducing stress, improving sleep and reducing risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.

It is also my way to enhance my online presence and support the other blogs I started before. I have different motivations why I maintain my blogs and one of them is to monetize my posts.

However, before we start with the details write exciting posts, we need to make sure that we an RSS feed so people can subscribe. We will first talk about what is an RSS feed, then why you'd want to have one and finally a bit about how to have one.

What's an RSS?

RSS feed is a standardized way of providing a way to subscribe to content in the Internet. It's an extension of XML and it used to be more popular before the emergence of social media as a way to keep following interesting content provided by websites or bulletins.

You can find mine in https://fitdadbod.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Every time my blog is updated, so is my feed.xml file and anyone subscribing to my feed will get an update that there's new content from me. In my opinion, it's probably the best way to follow content.

Many blogs are written and published in some sort of publishing or content management system (like Wordpress) or built with site generators. These tools offer automated ways to generate your RSS feed so you don't have to manually type the XML each time.

Why an RSS feed is so important?

These days, both authors and as readers find a lot of their content in social media. Social media can be a good tool to find new content from new writers, especially with the use of AI. However, social media platforms are run by algorithms that take the control of what content you see away from you and they show the content they think is most addictive so you'll spend more time on the platform.

This means that even following your favorite writers in Twitter or LinkedIn doesn't mean that you'd always see what they publish.

However, subscribing to an RSS feed using an RSS reader (like Feedly) or Slack's built-in /feed functionality means that you'll be in the driving seat. You choose which content you subscribe to and you'll only see that content.

From author's point of view, it also means you can cut through all the noise, circumvent the algorithm's arbitrariness and provide a nice way for your readers to read your blog posts.

Creating the Feed

You can create your feed manually if you wish but it's probably not a sustainable way – before or later you'll forget to update it or grow tired of doing it manually.

If you are using the Blogger platform, you can use this link. If your tool isn't mentioned, try googling "[your tool] RSS" and see if documentation can be found.