No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is important. For example, if your business provides travel services, it’s a good idea to include information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from consular offices, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to sift through, gather, and organize a lot of data, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site visitors with expert, up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your subscribers with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – Basic Information

• RSS, which, according to some experts is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as 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 feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
• RSS feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news headlines, videos, etc., to which other users can choose to subscribe.
• RSS feed content can be read using a program called an RSS reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to access content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content to many online properties.
• Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from different websites.

In this in-depth guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add content from other sites to your site using their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful way to share content online. Feeds provide a simple way for web users to receive the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s take a look at content syndication.

News publishers and influential online publications use syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.

Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest news items and newsworthy stories from all over the planet without actually having to post more reporting agencies to every location in the world …

(Online newspapers rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources around the globe.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content with other sites. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using news feeds …

(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)

Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.

Most online newspapers and major sites will include a feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “calgary herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

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

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …

(RSS feeds directory. Image Source: New York Times)

gives you access to content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further subcategory feeds …

(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use feeds is copy the URLs and paste these into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

Adding content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …

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

While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use YOUR content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Get other websites and blogs to syndicate content using your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)

About Your WordPress Feed

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

Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your sidebar or footer menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(Meta section)

2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.

For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On many websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Social Share, or Keep In Touch toolbar section …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Links, or Subscribe section)

4) You can also view your feed by simply typing your site’s URL into a web browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS page …

(Feed items displayed using Firefox)

Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …

(Feed entries as seen using Google Chrome)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many items you want displayed in your Feeds section, by going to your Reading Settings section and selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feed items setting)

The feed section will show the number of items you have specified section …

(Your feed page will show as many recent items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

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

(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …

(Post excerpts affect how a feed will display)

To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• A Basic Guide To Using WordPress Post Excerpts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and search for an RSS feed icon using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …

(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)

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

How To Add An RSS Feed To WordPress Sites

In the example below, we are going to add content from other website or blog’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.

How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …

(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)

First, Go to a website that publishes content that you want to display on your sidebar and copy its feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)

To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Website

Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should display in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been inserted – e.g. custom menu) …

(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 Posts

Can you add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar? Yes, you can!

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

(’Add Plugins’ search results)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.

The plugins below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin)

WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them into campaigns and categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)

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

For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)

The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.

The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each feed item as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.

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

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin)

The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you 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 help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication options for WordPress-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.

FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display content from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress WordPress Plugin

Autoblog

(Autoblog WP Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)

By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. You can use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin if you want to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.

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

(WordPress Comments RSS)

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

(Comments feed entries displayed with Firefox)

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

(Comments feed items seen on a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …

(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the content. 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 website or blog has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Single Item Feeds

Being able to access an RSS feed for specific post items 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 an individual post item is shown below:

(Feed For Individual Post Item)

To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, 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 associated with your post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

If your site contains content published under different categories, you can easily create a separate RSS feed for each category.

All you have to do is use the format below:

(WP post categories RSS feed format)

Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy your category link address …)

Append “feed” to the end of it …

(WP RSS feed format for post categories)

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

(Category-specific feed page)

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 – Publish A Directory Of Feeds On Your Site

You can set up your own list of feeds that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories that interest them, just like large websites …

(Set Up Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Your Subscribers)

You can link a button icon to each category feed URL and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …

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

To learn more about creating tables in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Creating And Adding Tables In Pages And Posts In WordPress

RSS – Additional Notes

RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to configure different feed formats that do not require touching code. For example, here are some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can display …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)

Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown 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 – Displays the latest comments published on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed that displays individual posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Contains latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/04/05/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/08/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Includes latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Includes the latest items for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: RSS feed that contains latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

Remember to promote your RSS feed. Place your subscribe links in a visible location …

(Encourage visitors to syndicate your feeds!)

Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you publish useful content. In other words, provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Add content from other sites and get others to subscribe to your content online with RSS!)

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 🙂

RSS – Resources:

• RSS Buttons – Visit www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logos”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping the general public gain a better understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about RSS.
• WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – WordPress software documentation. Go here for additional information about feeds in WordPress.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using their RSS feed.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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