No matter what what industry you are in, providing high-quality information to your site readers is important. For example, if your business provides medical services, it’s a good idea to include useful information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, takes a huge amount of effort and resources. You have to do a ton of information gathering, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, writing and editing content (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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your site visitors with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Basic Information About RSS

• RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save users time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
• Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog posts, news, video lists, etc., which any user can choose to subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata such as date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate web content.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (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 and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from multiple sites.

This article explains where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display content from other sites on your site via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide a way for online users to keep up with the latest information posted on different websites.

First, let’s look at the uses of content syndication.

Online media publications rely on content syndication to publish stories from news agencies all around the world.

Content syndication allows digital content publishers to deliver readers the most recent stories and newsworthy content from all around the planet without actually having to employ and post more content writers to every location in the world …

(Most news reporting agencies rely on content syndication to publish stories from news sources around the globe.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information. Global media publications syndicate their news stories using news feeds …

(Online newspapers syndicate their content using news feeds)

Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web traffic.

Major content sites include an RSS feed section (look for menu links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “express tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most news reporting agencies and leading online media publications provide links to an RSS feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

These RSS feed items give readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)

Feed sections can also include further feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)

Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you have to do is copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Using Feeds – Benefits

Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …

(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)

While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to use YOUR content.

When other websites syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Try to get other sites to syndicate content using your feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)

Your WordPress Feed

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:

1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your sidebar …

(Your feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in your Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

Another setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …

(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …

(Post excerpts can affect how a feed displays)

If you need help using excerpts in WordPress Posts, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Use Post Excerpts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, 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 translate feeds into readable content.

Let’s see how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and look for a ‘subscribe’ button using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader)

Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.

Adding A Feed To Your WP Site

Let’s show you how to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to yours.

How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you can add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …

(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)

copy the RSS feed URL from a website that publishes content that you want to display on your site …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar

Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should now appear on the sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …

(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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feed Content To Your Posts

Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.

(WordPress RSS plugins)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.

The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WP Plugin)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them according to categories and campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico WordPress Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin)

The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in your feed as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)

With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from various sources using RSS feeds.

The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, borders, fonts, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.

The premium version contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)

The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.

This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible syndication plugin for WordPress.

As stated in the FeedWordPress site …

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 plugin to create aggregator site (sites that bring together content from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog

(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies your default WordPress RSS feed to include pages and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your post comments.

You can inspect these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …

(Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content viewed with Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …

(Comments feed entries seen using a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …

(Paste the comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Specific Posts

Being able to create an RSS feed for specific post items can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.

The formula for accessing an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:

(Specific Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

If your site publishes content under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily create a separate RSS feed for each category.

All you have to do is use the format shown below:

(WP post categories RSS feed format)

Select and copy the category link address …

(Copy the selected category link address …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress post categories feed format)

Your category RSS feed will now only include content posted in that particular category …

(Category 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 Your Own List Of Feeds For Visitors

You can publish a directory of RSS feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger websites do …

(Provide Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds On Your Site)

All you need to do is link a button to a feed and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button. Source: public-domain-photos.com)

We have written a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress content here:

• How To Insert Tables Into Posts And Pages With WordPress

RSS – Additional Notes

You can customize RSS in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations without touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed types you can display …

(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)

Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments left on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing an individual post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: RSS Feed that includes the latest comments made on a post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Displays the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/08/20/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/02/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: RSS feed containing latest post entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One last thing …

It’s a good idea to promote your RSS feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button or link in a visible location …

(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide great information. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Easily add great content from other sites and get visitors to share your content online with RSS feeds!)

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 🙂

Resources:

• RSS Images – Visit www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logos”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation. Visit this site to learn more about using WordPress and 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 content from other websites and blogs on your site using RSS feeds.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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