No matter what what industry you are a part of, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with useful information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is an easier way to continually provide your site readers with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- When users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog post items, news, video playlists, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (XML = Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata such as date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then view any updates posted on these websites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate information.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine many RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from various sites.
In this comprehensive guide, we show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display content from other sites on your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide web users with a simple and easy way to receive the latest information posted on different websites.
First, let’s take a look at how content syndication is used.
Most news reporting agencies and highly-visited online publications use syndication to publish stories from content sources all around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers global stories and the latest news from all around the planet without having to post more news writers to every location in the world …
(Global media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information)
Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most online newspapers and major sites contain a feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major sites provide links to a feed section. Image: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a directory of different RSS feed sections …
(A site’s list of different RSS feeds. Source: NY Times)
Each of these feeds lets you access content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, travel news, science news, etc.)
An RSS list can also contain feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use a feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s business and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Content Syndication)
While adding a feed 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 sites to use YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(It’s a good idea to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
Overview Of The WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer …
(Your feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your WP Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles in your feed as full text, or just a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds display)
To learn more about using excerpts in WordPress Posts, see this step-by-step tutorial:
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 to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for an RSS feed link …
(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
Adding Feeds To WordPress
In the example below, we’ll add content from other site’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Find a website or blog containing content that you want to display on your site and copy its RSS feed to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Area – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content should now display on your sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WordPress Sidebar)
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 Content From RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts? Yes, you can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ screen for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
Here are some WordPress plugins that allow you to add RSS feeds to your posts and pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension 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 Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version of POWr 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)
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 functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a versatile Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress.
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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts.
You can access this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items displayed on Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries seen using a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
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 website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Individual Posts
Being able to create an RSS feed for individual posts can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for making an RSS feed for a single post item is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website or blog displays content published under a number of categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate RSS feed for each different category.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the category URL …
(Copy the selected category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories feed format)
The RSS feed will now only contain content assigned to that 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 – Provide Your Own Page Of Feeds
You can provide a feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like the larger websites do …
(Create A Page Of Feeds)
You can also link a button graphic to category (or single post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS button graphic. 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, go here:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats without code editing skills. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments left on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that contains single post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that displays the latest comments made on an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed containing the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/05/22/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed displaying latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed containing latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your feed. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add great content from other sites and get visitors to share your content using RSS feeds!)
If you need help coming up with content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our feed 🙂
Resources:
- Feed Buttons – Visit a site like iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: Feeds – WordPress documentation. Visit this site for more information about WordPress RSS.
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 display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using WordPress please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.
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