No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, providing high-value information to your blog visitors is essential. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with the latest information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.

To create and publish this type of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is a simpler way to continually provide your readers with expert, up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The easiest way to provide your site visitors with the latest information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

What Does RSS Mean?

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “news feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news headlines, audio lists, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
• You can read an RSS feed using a software program called a feedreader, or feed aggregator. Aggregators are used to find content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and updates made to this content) to various online properties.
• Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different machines, readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from many different sources.

In this comprehensive guide, we explain 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.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a really powerful way of sharing web content. Feeds provide web users with a simple and easy way to keep up with the latest information published on different sites.

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

Most news reporting agencies and highly-visited online publications use content syndication to publish stories from content sources around the world.

Syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers global stories and the latest news headlines from all around the globe without having to send additional news reporting and content writing teams to every location in the world …

(Most news publishers rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the globe.)

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

(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share newsworthy content with other news publications)

Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Major sites have a feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “times of india rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most news reporting agencies and major sites have a feed section. Image: SMH )

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

(A site’s list of different feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)

These feed items give you access to information from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, travel news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)

Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds …

(An RSS feed directory can also include feed subcategories. Source: latimes.com feeds)

Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s website and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …

(The Benefits Of Using Feeds)

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 sites to syndicate your content.

When other sites syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new visitors …

(Get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress Feed – Overview

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their sites.

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

1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …

(The feed 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

The other setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or a summary …

(Settings – 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 your feeds will appear)

We have created a detailed tutorial on WordPress Post excerpts here:

• Using Excerpts In WordPress Posts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s take a look at how this works.

First, find a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for an RSS feed link …

(Look 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 feed URL into an online feedreader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)

Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.

Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site

In the example below, we are going to add content sourced from another website or blog to your site.

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply 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 RSS content to the WordPress sidebar area …

(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)

First, Find a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy the feed URL …

(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)

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

(WP RSS Widget)

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Sidebar Navigation Area

Refresh your web browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar …

(RSS Feed Added To WordPress 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feeds To Posts

Can you add content from an RSS feed to a post instead of a sidebar? You sure can!

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

(’Add Plugins’ section)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.

Here are a few plugins that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your pages:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)

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

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

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin that offers a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you import RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin)

RSS Post Importer lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress blog.

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed)

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

The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.

The premium edition of POWr contains a number of 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 WP Plugin)

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, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes WP Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress)

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 posts from various different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev 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 to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages WP Plugin)

By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages Plugin

WordPress RSS Feeds – 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 latest post comments.

To see your comments feed, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …

(Comments RSS)

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

(RSS comments feed entries viewed with Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …

(Comments feed items viewed with a Google Chrome web browser)

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

(Paste your comments feed URL into a feed reader 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 WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Specific Post Item Feeds

Being able to display an RSS feed for a single post item can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts 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 a specific post item is shown below:

(RSS Feed For Specific Post Item)

To create the above feed, copy the URL 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 URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not the post content itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Category Feeds

Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

WordPress allows you to create category feeds.

Just use the format below:

(WordPress category RSS feed format)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy the category URL …)

Add the word “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)

Your feed now only contains content published in this particular category …

(Category-specific 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 – Publish Your Own RSS Feeds Directory

You can create your own feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger websites do …

(Create A List Of RSS Feeds)

All you need to do is link an icon to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …

(RSS icon. Image 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 posts and pages, go here:

• Creating And Adding Tables With WordPress

WordPress RSS – Notes

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

WordPress allows different feed configurations that do not require messing with code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of feeds you can use …

(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)

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

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

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing a specific post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Displays latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/06/30/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Feed containing the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/03/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Feed that contains latest posts 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: 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 your visitors 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!)

Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if your information is useful, educational, or highly engaging. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add someone else’s content and get others to subscribe to your content with 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 RSS feed 🙂

RSS Resources:

• RSS Images – Visit an online resource site like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, 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 learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – Official WordPress documentation repository. Go here to learn more about WordPress feeds.

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 RSS feeds.

Hopefully, you now have 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 for a business website or blog please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.

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