What is RSS?
RSS is most commonly defined as “Really Simple Syndication” but sometimes “Rich Site Summary”.
It is a way for a webpage, most commonly in the form of a blog to syndicate either as a partial or full representation of the pages content. RSS can allow you to quickly check your favorite blogs or often updated sites in an easy to digest format. It also allows a publisher to aggregate their content and repurpose it into other platforms and websites.
Originally, feeds were pulled from the source into desktop readers like Feed Deamon and others.
RSS Syndication Originally heralded as the great email replacer, I personally find RSS more interesting as a way that websites syndicate into other pages, than as a way to independently read content. My attitude is if I really am tired of the email I unsubscribe or create rules whereby my categorized email goes into folders. Of course free email like Gmail can always keep my commercial email separated.
Why Use RSS?
Too many might think that RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the remnant of a bygone age. However, their are many valid uses to this day. And many of those can help your SEO.
First off let us look at an RSS. Use the feed from Spider Juice Technologies.
https://www.spiderjuicetechnologies.com/feed/
or
https://www.spiderjuicetechnologies.com/rss/
If a site is made with WordPress you can often slap /feed/ to the end of the url and you will have their RSS.
But Why Grab a RSS Feed?
Originally RSS was made for us to be able to consume content by virtue of a RSS reader. Our favorite blogs could be read without having to remember and browse over to their website. It was fed to us through our readers.
The legacy email software like Outlook Express had it built right into their platform. Now, commercial websites provide us the joy of uber blog consumption.
Who are the Best Free Feed Readers?
If you are new to this RSS thing. Why not use something that you already probably have, but did not know that you have?
Outlook 365-If you have this on your macchine then it is pretty simple. Identify the RSS url you want, and follow the instructions in the graphic.
Warning, it is dependent on your version of Outlook. BTW Feed readers are common in many of the email programs out there. Do a quick search on your version and if a feed reader is built in.
Even free email services will have feed readers. Like hotmail/live.
Other best free feed readers:
https://feedly.com/
https://www.inoreader.com/
https://feedreader.com/
Paid:
https://feedbin.com/
How to Use RSS for Fun and Profit
So how do you use RSS as a power user and not merely a consumer?
Decades ago, SEO was a simpler game. It was mostly about getting links from high Page Rank (PR) documents. Today we say authorative as opposed to PR. So I would use feeds as a way to craft very relevant content that spun into highly authorative domains. Rinse, Repeat.
RSS allowed me to scale as I took these feeds and mixed them into content that syndicated across many of my domains. What the kids are calling PBN’s (private blog network) these days.
External Sitemapping: A new website has new pages and a new page needs to be indexed into Google before it can be ranked into Google’s top pages. So what is the best way for Google to naturally find a page? From an external link.
RSS syndication can be used to link back to your own unindexed page.
Content Repurposing: Reuse your valuable posts by posting your RSS into other webpages. You can do this through mashing several RSS feeds together. Or just place your feed URL into your favorite Social network like Facebook. Zapier can take RSS feeds and post them into Facebook, as IFTTT can.
Rev Up Your Own Content: Sometimes you may want to give your page more relative content. You can mash an RSS feed of your favorite posts and provide it on a webpage. Be sure to provide proper attribution as copyright laws require.
Syndication: My favorite. By using RSS to syndicate content from your main sources. You can post out to multiple social and WEB 2.0 platforms. Making the need to create content once not multiple times. And bonus. Do it right and you get a link back to your site.
Authority Jacking- By taking content that has high authority, you can embed it into documents that you wish to have authority.
What has authority? Short answer-what does Google own, and or respect? There are tools out there like Moz Rank, but this is not rocket science. If a document is ranked high on Google for a query, then it probably is considered authorative.
Originally posted April 5, 2016 on Houseblogger. Updated 3/2026 by Coach T