Publish an RSS feed for your blog
Understand RSS for your studio blog—who still uses feeds, how readers and aggregators work, how RSS differs from email, WebSub-style faster updates, and a publishing strategy that sits beside sitemap and IndexNow controls.
What RSS is
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a living, machine-readable list of your published blog posts. A reader app or website subscribes once, then learns when you publish, edit, or remove a post—without you manually reposting into every network.
ArtInStack publishes your feed automatically at:
https://your-domain.example/blog/feed.xml
Use your custom domain when connected. You do not install a separate feed product.
Who actually uses it
- Loyal readers who prefer an inbox of writing over algorithmic feeds.
- Photographers and writers who treat the blog as a series, not a one-off announcement.
- Community sites, research hubs, and tools that still import RSS.
- You, when you want a single URL that means “everything I publish in writing.”
Social platforms dominate casual discovery. RSS still wins for intentional subscribers who asked to hear every post.
Feed readers and aggregators
| Kind | Examples of the job |
|---|---|
| Feed readers | Apps where a person follows many sites in one place |
| Aggregators / importers | Sites or tools that pull your feed into a directory, newsletter draft, or community hub |
| Search and discovery tools | Systems that notice feed changes faster than a full site crawl |
You promote the feed URL; they pull on their schedule—or sooner when notified (below).
Why RSS still matters when social dominates
Social apps optimize for their timeline, not your archive. RSS keeps a direct line from your site → the reader with no intermediary account to please. It also ages well: a post from last year stays in the feed history for new subscribers who join late.
How RSS differs from email and newsletters
| RSS | Email (Email Center) | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Pull — the reader’s app fetches updates | Push — you send a campaign |
| List | Subscriptions live in the reader, not in your CRM | Addresses live in your studio list |
| Cadence | Every published post (that belongs in the feed) | Only when you schedule a message |
| Best paired with | Cornerstone writing and series | Announcements, offers, curated highlights |
Many studios run both: RSS for “all posts,” email for “the ones worth interrupting inbox for.”
WebSub and faster feed updates
When you publish, edit, unpublish, or change hide-from-search on a public post, ArtInStack refreshes /blog/feed.xml and notifies compatible subscribers (WebSub-style real-time delivery) so they do not wait on slow polling alone. Draft-only saves do not ping the feed.
That is feed delivery—not the same as optional search-engine notify in Site controls.
Where to find and promote the feed
- Open
https://your-domain.example/blog/feed.xmlon the live host after a publish. - Add a clear “Subscribe via RSS” link on the blog index, about page, or footer.
- Mention the URL once in a newsletter for readers who want every post without more email.
- Prefer a stable custom domain so the feed URL does not move when branding settles.
What enters the feed
| Situation | In the feed? |
|---|---|
| Post published and public | Yes |
| You edit a published post | Feed updates |
| You unpublish or delete | Leaves the feed |
| You change hide from search on a public post | Feed membership follows that visibility change |
| Draft only | No |
A good RSS publishing strategy
- Write for humans first; titles and excerpts must work in a reader’s narrow list UI.
- Keep a believable cadence—quiet consistency beats a burst then silence.
- Use RSS for the full writing stream; use social and email for selected launches.
- Do not put client-confidential stories on the public blog if you would not want them in a third-party reader cache.
When RSS is especially useful for photographers and writers
- Trip journals, process notes, and exhibition writing with a returning audience.
- Teaching or conservation storytelling where archives matter.
- Cross-posting into communities that still accept feed imports.
- Reducing pressure to “be always on” every social app while still shipping writing.
How RSS fits beside sitemap and IndexNow
| Signal | Job |
|---|---|
| RSS | Subscribers and aggregators following your writing stream |
| Sitemap | Search engines learning which URLs exist |
| IndexNow / search notify (optional Site controls) | Pinging participating engines when public URLs change |
They complement each other. Configure sitemap, meta, and notify toggles on the blog SEO and Site controls docs; use this page for strategy and understanding.