No matter what your business sells or what industry you belong to, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if your business provides travel services, it’s a good idea to provide users with information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, advice from consular offices, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure 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 beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your site readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS, which, according to some experts stands for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that subscribers can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news headlines, audio playlists, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured 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 websites and then browse any updates posted on these websites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their information automatically.
- 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 (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from different sources.
In this in-depth article, 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 content from other websites and blogs on your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate way to share web content. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Online newspapers and highly-visited online media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and stories of interest from around the planet without actually having to hire more news reporting agencies all around the world …
(Many digital content agencies use syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate stories using feeds)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives 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 sites include 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”, “express tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many digital publishers and major content sites contain a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(A website’s directory of different RSS feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives readers access to content from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need 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.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s website, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding RSS 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 sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Get other website owners to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your traffic!)
Overview Of The WordPress RSS
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed as part of your navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find links or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Share, or Links section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Follow Us, Share, or Link To Us floating, fixed, or slide-out toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s 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 website or blog has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your site’s feed page …
(Feed items displayed using Firefox)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS feed content viewed with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many posts you want to show in your RSS Feed page in the Reading Settings section. Enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Settings – Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items field)
Your feed section will show the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will show as many recent posts as 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 each article in a feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed will display)
To learn more about Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you have to do to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or button …
(Search for an RSS feed section. Image source: 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 URL of your feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the 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 RSS Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other sites to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing their RSS 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 RSS content to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website that publishes content that you would like to display on your site and copy the RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(RSS Feed 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 RSS Feed Content To WordPress Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to posts? Yes, you can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ screen – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are a few auto blogging tools that allow you to create posts using RSS feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them 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 autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS combines and displays content from multiple RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of this plugin contains a number of 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 other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator sites, or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog – WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply 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)
The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
You can inspect your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen on a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(Comments feed items as seen on a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
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 installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Displaying RSS Feeds For Specific Post Items
Being able to select an RSS feed for a specific post item 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 accessing an RSS feed for individual post items is shown below:
(Specific Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, 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 post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(Format for WP post categories feed)
Copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed now only includes content posted for this category …
(Category RSS 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
You can provide your own page of feeds for subscribers that allows readers to subscribe only to specific categories …
(Publish A List Of RSS Feeds For Your Visitors)
Link a button to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress posts, refer to this tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Notes
You can customize your feeds in various different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed formats that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments posted on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/07/18/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed displaying latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to let visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button image somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add content to your site and get other sites to subscribe to your content with 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Download RSS Images – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org – WordPress documentation and information site. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know how 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 their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this post has given you 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 the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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