Everything your company needs to know to get the most out of your RSS feed on Rotorcraft News.
INTRODUCTION
If your company publishes rotorcraft-related content and wants it featured on Rotorcraft News, having a well-configured RSS feed is the foundation of a successful aggregation relationship. This guide covers everything you need to know — from validating your feed to optimizing images to resolving common technical issues.
Following these guidelines ensures your content displays professionally on Rotorcraft News, reaches the widest possible audience, and drives maximum traffic back to your website.
If you have questions not covered in this guide or need help troubleshooting your feed, please Contact Us and we will work with you directly.
WHAT IS AN RSS FEED
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a standardized file that your website automatically generates containing a list of your most recent articles including their titles, descriptions, images, publication dates, and links back to the original content.
RSS feeds allow news aggregators like Rotorcraft News to automatically discover and display your content without you having to manually submit each article. Once your feed is configured and added to Rotorcraft News your content appears automatically every time you publish something new.
RSS is not new technology — it has been the backbone of news aggregation and content syndication for decades. Most modern websites generate an RSS feed automatically without any special configuration required.
STEP 1 — FIND YOUR RSS FEED URL
Before anything else you need to know your RSS feed URL. Here is where to find it on the most common platforms:
WordPress Your feed is automatically available at: yourwebsite.com/feed/
For example if your website is at www.bellhelicopter.com your feed would be at www.bellhelicopter.com/feed/
WordPress also generates category-specific feeds: yourwebsite.com/category/news/feed/ yourwebsite.com/category/press-releases/feed/
Squarespace Your feed is automatically available at: yourwebsite.com/blog?format=rss
Wix Your feed is automatically available at: yourwebsite.com/blog-feed.xml
Webflow Your feed is automatically available at: yourwebsite.com/rss.xml
Custom or enterprise websites Check with your web developer or IT team. Your feed URL may be at a non-standard path. Common locations include:
yourwebsite.com/rssyourwebsite.com/rss.xmlyourwebsite.com/feed.xmlyourwebsite.com/news/feed
If your website does not have a built-in RSS feed, services like RSS.app can generate one automatically from any website.
STEP 2 — VALIDATE YOUR FEED
Before submitting your feed to Rotorcraft News validate it using one of these free tools to confirm it is working correctly and contains all required fields:
W3C Feed Validator — validator.w3.org/feed/ The gold standard for RSS validation maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. Enter your feed URL and it will check for errors and warnings with specific guidance on how to fix each issue.
RSS Board Validator — rssboard.org/rss-validator/ An alternative validator that provides detailed error messages and is particularly good at identifying missing fields.
Meta Tags Checker — metatags.io Checks how your content appears when shared on social media and in aggregators. Useful for confirming your images and descriptions display correctly.
A valid feed should show no errors in the W3C validator. Warnings are less critical but should be reviewed and resolved where possible.
STEP 3 — REQUIRED FEED FIELDS
For the best display on Rotorcraft News your RSS feed should include all of the following fields for each article:
Title The article headline. Should be clear, descriptive, and directly communicate the news value. Maximum recommended length is 100 characters.
Link The full URL of the original article on your website. This is the link readers click to read the full story. Must be a complete URL including https://.
Description A brief summary or excerpt of the article. Ideally 50 to 150 words. This appears as the excerpt beneath the headline on Rotorcraft News. If your feed does not include a description field the excerpt will be generated from the article content.
Publication Date The date and time the article was published in standard RSS date format. This is used to sort articles chronologically on Rotorcraft News.
Featured Image The primary image associated with the article. This is the most important optional field — articles with strong featured images perform significantly better than those without. See the Image Requirements section below for full details.
Author The name of the article author or your company name. Displayed as attribution on Rotorcraft News.
Category or Tags Optional but recommended. Category and tag information helps Rotorcraft News correctly categorize your content.
STEP 4 — IMAGE REQUIREMENTS
Images have the single biggest impact on how your content performs on Rotorcraft News. Articles with strong, relevant featured images receive significantly more clicks than those without.
Technical requirements:
- Minimum size: 800 × 450 pixels
- Recommended size: 1200 × 675 pixels
- Format: JPG or PNG
- Maximum file size: 2MB per image
- Aspect ratio: 16:9 recommended for best display across all devices
Image quality guidelines:
- Use real photography of aircraft, operations, products, and personnel wherever possible
- Avoid images that are primarily text, logos, or generic graphics — company logos do not qualify as featured images and will not be accepted
- Avoid watermarked stock photography
- Ensure images are high resolution and not pixelated or blurry
- Images should be directly relevant to the article content
How images are pulled from your feed: Your RSS feed should include your featured image using one of the following methods:
Method 1 — Media enclosure tag (preferred):
<enclosure url="https://yoursite.com/image.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>Method 2 — Media content tag:
<media:content url="https://yoursite.com/image.jpg" medium="image"/>Method 3 — Open Graph meta tag: If neither enclosure nor media:content tags are present Rotorcraft News will attempt to pull the Open Graph image from the article page. Installing Yoast SEO on WordPress automatically adds Open Graph tags to all your posts.
If no image is available: When an article does not include a qualifying featured image, Rotorcraft News displays a branded category fallback image in its place. These fallback images are designed to keep every article card looking professional and visually consistent with the category it appears in.
Please note that company logos and text-based graphics do not qualify as featured images and will not be accepted as article images. This is because logos and graphics do not perform well at the sizes used to display article cards, and research consistently shows that real photography of aircraft, operations, products, and personnel drives significantly higher click-through rates than logos or branded graphics. Getting real photography into your feed is one of the single most impactful things you can do to increase the traffic Rotorcraft News sends back to your website.
We still recommend including featured images in your feed wherever possible, as article-specific photography drives significantly more clicks and engagement than a fallback image.
STEP 5 — WORDPRESS OPTIMIZATION
If your website runs on WordPress — the most common platform for rotorcraft company websites — here are the specific steps to optimize your feed for Rotorcraft News:
Install Yoast SEO (free) Yoast SEO automatically adds Open Graph image tags to every post ensuring your featured images are always included in your RSS feed. It also improves your overall SEO which benefits your site beyond just RSS aggregation. Download at wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Set a featured image on every post In the WordPress post editor look for the Featured Image panel in the right sidebar. Set a high quality image on every post you publish. This image will be pulled into your RSS feed automatically.
Avoid excerpt-only feeds Some WordPress themes and plugins restrict RSS feeds to show only a short excerpt without the full content. While Rotorcraft News can work with excerpt-only feeds full content feeds provide a richer experience. Check your WordPress Settings → Reading → For each article in a feed show → select Full text if possible.
Category-specific feeds If your website covers topics beyond rotorcraft aviation you can submit a category-specific feed to Rotorcraft News rather than your full site feed. This ensures only your rotorcraft-relevant content is aggregated. Your category feed URL will be: yourwebsite.com/category/your-rotorcraft-category/feed/
STEP 6 — NON-WORDPRESS PLATFORMS
Squarespace Squarespace generates RSS feeds automatically. To optimize images ensure you set a thumbnail image on every blog post. Squarespace includes this image in the RSS feed automatically.
Wix Wix generates RSS feeds for blog content. Ensure your blog posts include featured images. Wix includes the first image in a post in the RSS feed.
Custom or Enterprise Websites If your website is built on a custom platform contact your web development team and share this guide. Key requests for your developer:
- Ensure the RSS feed includes media:content or enclosure tags for featured images
- Confirm the feed validates without errors at validator.w3.org/feed/
- Ensure the feed is publicly accessible without authentication
- Check that the server is not blocking RSS aggregator requests
If your platform does not support RSS Services like RSS.app can generate a valid RSS feed from any website automatically. RSS.app monitors your website for new content and generates a feed that meets all standard requirements. Visit rss.app for more information.
COMMON ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
Issue: 403 Forbidden Error Your server is blocking RSS aggregator requests. This is usually caused by a Web Application Firewall, Cloudflare security settings, or server-level bot blocking. It does not mean your feed is invalid — it means your server is preventing automated access.
Solution: Contact your hosting provider or web developer and ask them to whitelist RSS aggregator access to your feed URL. Specifically ask them to allow requests from common RSS aggregator user agents. Alternatively, please Contact Us and we can work with you to find a solution such as using a Google News feed as a workaround.
Issue: Feed validates but images are not showing Your feed does not include media:content or enclosure tags for images.
Solution: Install Yoast SEO if using WordPress, or ask your developer to add media:content tags to your RSS feed output. Alternatively ensure your article pages include Open Graph meta tags with og:image specified.
Issue: Feed URL has changed Your website was redesigned or migrated and the RSS feed URL is now different.
Solution: Please Contact Us with your new feed URL and we will update our records promptly.
Issue: Feed returns no items Your feed URL is valid but returns an empty feed.
Solution: Check that your website has published content and that the feed is not filtered to a category with no posts. If you recently launched your website it may take a few days for content to populate.
Issue: Articles appearing with wrong category on Rotorcraft News Your content is being assigned to the wrong category.
Solution: Please Contact Us and we will review and correct the category assignment for your feed.
Issue: Old or duplicate articles appearing Rotorcraft News is showing articles that are outdated or that have appeared multiple times.
Solution: This can occur when feed URLs change or when content is republished. Please Contact Us and we will investigate and resolve the duplication.
GOOGLE NEWS FEEDS
If your website’s RSS feed is blocked by a 403 error or is not available in a standard format, Rotorcraft News may use a Google News search feed as an alternative. Google News feeds pull your publicly indexed content through Google’s infrastructure, bypassing server-level blocks.
A Google News feed for your website would look like: https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=site:yourwebsite.com&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
While Google News feeds are effective they have one significant limitation — they do not pass through your article’s featured images, meaning your content will display with the Rotorcraft News branded fallback image rather than your own photography.
For the best display we strongly recommend resolving any server-side blocking issues so your direct RSS feed can be used instead. This ensures your own images and branding appear alongside your content on Rotorcraft News.
SUBMITTING YOUR FEED
Once your feed is validated and optimized, please Contact Us with the following information:
- Your company name
- Your website URL
- Your RSS feed URL
- A brief description of the type of content you publish
- The rotorcraft topics your content covers
Our team will review your feed, confirm it meets our requirements, and add it to Rotorcraft News. We aim to process new feed submissions within five business days.
A formal feed submission form will be available as part of the Rotorcraft Directory launch.
FEED VALIDATION TOOLS QUICK REFERENCE
| Tool | URL | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| W3C Feed Validator | validator.w3.org/feed/ | Technical RSS validation |
| RSS Board Validator | rssboard.org/rss-validator/ | Detailed error messages |
| Meta Tags Checker | metatags.io | Image and social preview checking |
| Google Rich Results Test | search.google.com/test/rich-results | Structured data validation |
