No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, it’s important to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to publish the latest information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from consulates, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sorting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your site readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Basic Information About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog posts, news headlines, audios, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- You can read an RSS feed using software called feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders are used to find new content published on websites and distribute this content to other online properties.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from several different sources.
This guide explains where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful way of sharing web content. Feeds provide a simple way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at how content syndication is used.
Online newspapers and global media publications use content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers and leading online publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and stories of general interest from all around the globe without having to hire and post more staff everywhere in the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information with other sites. Content publishers syndicate their information using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by digital publishing agencies to share content with other news publications)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows great information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most leading online media publications provide links to a feed section (look for navigation links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “huffington post rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most news publishing agencies and major sites have an RSS feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS directory. Source: NY Times)
These RSS feeds give you access to information from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, sports news, health news, etc.)
An RSS list can also include further subcategories …
(An RSS directory can also include subcategory feeds. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use the feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Using RSS Feeds Has Many Benefits!)
While adding feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s a great idea to try and get other websites to syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Try to get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(The feed page will display the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed displays)
If you need help using excerpts in WordPress Posts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website whose content you want to syndicate and look for a ‘subscribe’ button …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other sites to your WordPress site.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can easily display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content should display in your sidebar …
(RSS Widget)
Add Your WordPress RSS Feed To Search Consoles
You can add your WordPress RSS feed to Google and Bing’s search consoles. This will help them index your content faster.
(WordPress RSS feed added to Google Search Console)
Adding your site’s RSS feed to search consoles is simple, fast, easy, and requires no technical skills. For a step-by-step tutorial, go here:
How To Add An RSS Feed To Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of the sidebar?
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside the Plugins screen for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are a few auto blogging plugins that allow you to automatically add new using RSS feeds and imported content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to import RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of every item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.
The premium version of this plugin contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site-generated content.
As stated in the FeedWordPress website …
FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.
You can use this FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To inspect this, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items displayed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed items as seen on a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Note: If the Meta section is not displaying on your theme, you can view the Comments RSS section of your site by opening up a browser and typing in the following URL:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/comments/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/comments/feed (if your WordPress installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using RSS Feeds For Single Posts
Being able to select an RSS feed for specific post items can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for using an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the post URL, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from a specific post category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website displays content published under various categories, you can provide a separate feed for each different category.
Just use the format below:
(Use this format for WP category RSS feed)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy the category URL …)
And append “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress post categories feed)
Your RSS feed now only contains content assigned to this particular category …
(Category-specific feed)
The WordPress Codex also provides different ways to create feeds not just for post categories, but also feeds for tags, authors, search, etc.
For this example, let’s create a feed for a specific post category using the format shown below:
(Post Category feed format. Source: WordPress Codex)
Here is the feed format WordPress recommends using. In this example, the post category ID is ’42’. We’ll need to replace the post category ID and the domain name …
(WordPress post category feed format)
To find the post category ID, go to Posts > Categories …
(Posts > Categories menu)
Locate the post category you want and hover your mouse over the title to reveal its unique ID …
(Post Category ID)
In our example, the post category ID is ’29’ and the post category feed format we need to use for this specific category with our domain name looks like this …
(Post category feed format with domain name and ID)
Copy and paste the feed into your browser and hit enter …
(Paste the feed into your browser)
This will display the feed for that specific category …
(RSS feed of a specific post category)
Note that in this example, WordPress automatically converted the feed format we pasted into the browser into the category feed we had used in the previous section of this tutorial …
(Post category feed format)
Here is the feed format again …
(Post category feed)
In this case, the simplest way to create additional feeds for specific categories is to simply change the post category slug …
(Change the post category slug to create a new category specific feed)
Paste the edited feed into your web browser and hit enter to display the content for that specific category’s feed …
(Post category feed content)
Now that you have a method for creating feeds for specific post categories (or tags, authors, etc.), you can even create a directory or list of individual feeds for visitors.
Tip #4 – Create A Feeds Directory
You can publish an RSS feeds page that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Provide A Page Of Feeds For Your Subscribers)
Link a button image like the one shown below to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS image. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress content, go here:
RSS Feeds – Notes
Feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows various feed configurations that do not require code editing skills. For example, the table below shows some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use and how to structure your feeds …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that contains the latest comments posted on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/06/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed that includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if your content is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add content from other sites and get others to share your content using WordPress and RSS!)
If you need great content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- Feed Images – Visit iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about RSS.
- WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and reference. Visit this site to learn more about using WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WP software please see other posts on this site.
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