No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, it’s vitally important to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to include information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton 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 kept 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 readers with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your site visitors with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – A Basic Overview
- RSS, which, according to some stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the site and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news headlines, audio lists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata like date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse updates posted on these sites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their information automatically.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. 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 that feeds are compatible with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from multiple sites.
In this detailed guide, we show you 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 their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing content online. Feeds provide a way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Global media and news reporting agencies rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows most news publishing agencies to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and stories of general interest from around the globe without actually having to set up additional news reporting agencies everywhere in the world …
(Many news reporting agencies and many influential media publications use syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content. News reporting agencies syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content)
Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web visitors.
Most news reporting agencies and major online media publications have a feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “chicago tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news publishers and major sites include an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content areas of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these feed items allows readers to access different sections of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All you have to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content - 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 content using your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get other website owners to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on your sidebar …
(The feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or just a summary …
(WordPress Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed will display)
To learn more about using Post excerpts in WordPress, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for their RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds.
Adding Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you could add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed URL from a site that publishes content that you want to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been added – e.g. custom menu, footer, etc) …
(RSS Feed Added To WP 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 RSS Feed Content To Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar? Yes, you can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
The plugins listed below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is an advanced importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer can be used to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium 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:
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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display posts from various different sources), or display all your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog)
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 your feed URL, name your feed (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 WordPress Plugin)
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Using RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users.
You can see these 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 display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(RSS comments feed items viewed on a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader 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 website or blog has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Specific Post RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for a specific post 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 making an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Specific 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 append “/feed” to the end of a post address, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website displays content published under various categories, you can provide a separate feed for each of these categories.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed now only includes content assigned to that particular category …
(Category-specific RSS 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 Your Own Feeds Directory
You can set up your own page of feeds for your subscribers that allows your readers to subscribe to specific categories, just like large online publishers …
(Publish Your Own Page Of Feeds)
All you need to do is link an image like the one shown below to category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress content, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Notes
You can customize feeds in several ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows a number of feed configurations that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feed types you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest posts
- 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 containing a post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed displaying latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/12/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed containing the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let visitors know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link in a visible location …
(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you publish useful 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.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get others to syndicate your content using 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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- Feed Graphics – Visit a site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation and information repository. Go here for more information about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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