What is an RSS feed, and do I need one?

What an RSS feed is

Really Simple Syndication. It is a dedicated URL that updates automatically with the details of each new thing published.

Somebody who follows that URL in a third-party reader, Feedly being the example systeme.io names, gets notified whenever a new post goes up. No email address changes hands.

The blog already has one

Every blog created in systeme.io generates its feed automatically, and it updates each time a post is published. There is nothing to switch on.

To find the URL: open the Sites tab, click Blogs, click the three dots next to the blog, choose Settings, and use the copy icon on the RSS Feed field.

That is the same popup that holds the blog's name, domain, URL path and language, so the feed URL is two clicks from anywhere in the blog rather than buried in a separate SEO screen.

What is in it

The 20 most recently published posts, and no more. systeme.io describes that cap as deliberate, for performance, and as standard industry practice. Older posts stay fully available on the blog itself. They are absent from the feed and nowhere else.

What it will not carry

The feed is not suitable for podcast distribution, and media content is not supported. systeme.io states its purpose as regular blog content, search visibility and building a readership.

Anyone planning to host a podcast on the back of a blog feed needs a different tool for it.

Do you need one?

The feed exists whether or not anybody uses it, so the real question is whether to hand the URL out. systeme.io places no restriction on how the link is shared and names three ways of doing it:

• Paste it into a newsletter to the contacts already in the account.
• Put a button, a link or an RSS icon on the blog's own pages.
• Post it on social media.

For a blog nobody has asked to follow yet, the feed costs nothing and does nothing. It becomes worth pointing at once there is a run of posts behind it.