Yes, you can use an RSS feed in your Rocketspark blog, read on to find out more information on how to do this and why it may be useful for your blog.
What are RSS feeds?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way to structure blog content into a format called XML, this can then be used by yourself or others to help share your blog content with a wider audience, boost your SEO and gain subscribers. RSS feeds are found at a URL (website address), which displays the information in a formatted XML form, this is useful when trying to use your blog information in more than one place without typing it out multiple times.
Here is a quick example of what the XML content would look like.
<title>My latest blog post about Rocketspark</title>
<link>http://a-link-back-to-the-website.com</link>
<description>...</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Apr 2015 08:27:45 +0100</pubDate>
(repeat above for all blog posts)
Note: These are the only fields that are sent through the feed. We do not pass the blog images.
The RSS address would contain all the details about the blog posts. This can then be passed on to other applications that support RSS for an easy way to share your blog posts around.
The last 10 published live blogs are sent.
How do I get my Rocketspark Blog RSS feed?
Our blog automatically generates an RSS feed. You can find this link on your blog page right below the Full post archive link, the icon is the little round symbol with radio beacon waves on it. Clicking this will open your RSS feed URL in your browser (if it supports RSS).
Otherwise, you can right-click on this link and Copy the Link Address/URL to use elsewhere.
The RSS feed is automatically updated each time you post a new blog post, so no need to worry about a thing!
What are some ways I can use RSS?
An RSS feed is not for everyone, they are only useful if you have another website or application that needs content from your blog. Some people will not need to use one, listed below are some of the more common uses:
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Allow your visitors to subscribe. Automatically having an RSS icon on your website this allows your visitors to Subscribe to your feed. If your website visitors use RSS they most likely have an RSS reader program on their computer and subscribe to feeds they find interesting. This way they are automatically updated with the latest info from your website (and others) without having to actually visit your website.
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Email Marketing, some of the better email marketing tools allow a bit of automation of email newsletters by tapping into a designated RSS feed. The idea here is that you do your monthly blog post and then you can quickly get this information into your marketing emails, or automatically detect a new blog post and email this directly to your subscribers. Here are a couple of links to investigate here:
https://www.campaignmonitor.com/rss-to-email/
http://mailchimp.com/features/rss-to-email/
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Automatic Email Digest, a great not well-known tool that Google offers is Feedburner. It allows you to tap into your RSS feed and send out monthly digests of your blog posts to subscribers. A digest means that there is just one email with multiple blog posts of your newest content in the email. At our latest check, Feedburner is free to use and allows you to have free subscribers as well. This makes Feedburner a great option.
http://feedburner.google.com/
FAQs
Q: Can I customise what content appears in my RSS feed (e.g. include full posts vs summaries)?
A: At the moment, Rocketspark sends only post titles, links, descriptions, and publication dates in the feed. Full content (especially with images) isn’t included. If you need full content, you’ll want to use tools or services that pull the summaries and link back to your full post. If you have ideas for customisation, let us know — we’re always looking to improve.
Q: Will images ever be included in my RSS feed?
A: Currently no — images are excluded. This helps the feed stay lightweight and compatible with more tools. If having images in the feed is important for your use case (e.g. newsletter design), you might consider embedding images in the blog post itself or using a third-party service that enhances RSS feeds.
Q: How often is the RSS feed updated when I publish new content?
A: It updates automatically whenever you publish a new live blog post. That means once your blog post is live, it will show up in the feed without any additional steps.
Q: Can I limit how many posts are in the feed, or change the default number (e.g. more than 10)?
A: Not via Rocketspark settings at present – the feed shows the 10 most recent live blog posts. If you need more or fewer, you may need an external feed-management tool that can aggregate or filter feeds.
Q: What can I do with RSS if I’m using email marketing tools?
A: Great question! Many email marketing platforms allow you to connect an RSS feed to automatically generate newsletter content. For example, you can set up campaigns to send emails when a new blog is posted, or send periodic digests with the latest posts. Just check whether your tool supports “RSS-to-email” or similar.
Q: Will the RSS feed affect my website speed or SEO negatively?
A: Generally no. The feed itself is lightweight — XML is just text data, so it doesn’t slow down webpages. Having an RSS feed can help with SEO in that it makes content easily discoverable and consumable by other tools and services, but it doesn’t directly influence search rankings.