No matter what what industry you are in, providing quality information to your site readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to include information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a ton of data, check your facts, write and edit 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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site readers with great 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
What Is RSS?
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- After a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and keeps subscribers automatically updated.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news, videos, etc., to which other users can choose to subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be read using a software-based tool called a feedreader, or feed aggregator. Feed readers are used to find content on all kinds of topics and distribute this content (and updates made to this content) online.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from several different sources.
This article explains where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to receive the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how content syndication is used.
Global media and online newspapers use syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies and many highly-visited media publications to deliver readers stories from around the planet without having to send more writers everywhere in the world …
(Media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. News reporting agencies syndicate their content using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate content using feeds)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Many online newspapers and major online media publications will have an RSS 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.) …
(Many news publishers and leading online media publications provide links to a feed section. Image Source: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds section. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these RSS feed items allows you to access information from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also contain feed subdirectories. Image: LA Times RSS)
Note: A feed is just a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need to do is copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s business and helps you by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Using Feeds)
While adding RSS feeds 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 websites to use YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more visitors …
(It’s a good idea to get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
Overview Of The WordPress RSS
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed as part of your navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(You can access your WordPress RSS feed in the Entries RSS menu)
2) You can also find links or buttons on certain WordPress 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 feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on the WP theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Social Share, or Follow toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Link To Us, or Subscribe slide-out, floating, or fixed toolbar)
4) You can also view your feed by simply typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS page …
(Feed items as seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Feed items viewed with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you would like displayed in your Feeds page, by going to your Reading Settings section and typing the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items field)
The feed will show as many recent items you have specified section …
(The feed will show the number of 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 your posts as full text, or just a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts affect how content in feeds will appear)
If you need help using WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for a ‘subscribe’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of your feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add RSS content from another site to your WordPress site.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Find a website or blog that publishes content that you want to add to your site and copy the RSS feed URL …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To Sidebar Menu)
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:
Adding Content From RSS Feeds To Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of the sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a few autoblogging plugins that allow you to create posts with RSS feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is an advanced, feature-filled importer that allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
POWr RSS allows you to automatically combine content from various content using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin version contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress 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 powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export your 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that display posts from different sources), or bring together all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
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. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying feeds of your posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
To view the comments in your feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items as seen on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed using a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image 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 or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Single Post Items
Being able to display an RSS feed for individual posts 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 individual post items is shown below:
(Individual Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If you publish content under several categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer subscribers a separate feed for each post category.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(Feed format for category)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category feed format)
The feed will now only include content specific to this particular category …
(Category 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 – Create Your Own Feeds Page
You can set up a page of feeds for your visitors that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Set Up A Directory Of Feeds For Your Site Visitors)
All you need to do is link an icon like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate 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 pages and posts, go here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure various feed types without code editing skills. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feeds you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments posted on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that displays the latest comments made on single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/04/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed containing the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest entries 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 let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ link or button in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide great information that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get others to subscribe to 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 Resources:
- Download RSS Images – Visit FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS icons.
- 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 broadening the public understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – WordPress software documentation repository. Go here to learn more about using WordPress and RSS.
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, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya