No matter what product or service your business provides, providing quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, you may want to provide users with information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from consulates, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, involves a great deal of effort and expertise. You have to do a lot 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 make sure that this information is continually 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 easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Mean?
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- When a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, audios, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- You can view an RSS feed using software programs called RSS readers, or feed aggregators. Aggregators can be used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and any updates made to this content) to other online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from several different sources.
In this guide, we will show you 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 using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with a way to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.
Most news reporting agencies rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories and news items from all around the planet without having to hire more content writers all around the world …
(Global media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major sites contain an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say “RSS” 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 leading online media publications will have a feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(A directory of feeds. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these RSS feeds allows readers to access content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also contain subcategory feeds. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into software that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content, it also adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Using Feeds)
While adding an RSS feed 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 use your content.
When other sites syndicate your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Look for ways to get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Share, or Stay In Touch toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Links, or Stay In Touch section)
4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS feed …
(Feed entries viewed with a Firefox browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS feed content viewed on Google Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many items you would like displayed in your RSS Feed section in the Reading Settings section. Select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items)
Your feed will display as many recent posts as you have specified section …
(The feed will display the number of items you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles as full text, or just a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial on WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button. Image source: 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 URL of your feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Site
Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another site to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
copy the feed URL from a site containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content should display on your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(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 Add Feed Content To Your Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of the sidebar?
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
The plugins below can be used to 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 auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin 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 entire content of every item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)
POWr RSS allows you to combine content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin edition 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 other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or display all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, 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 and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies RSS feeds to include pages and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can see this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items seen on Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed content displayed with a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Item RSS Feeds
Being able to use an RSS feed for a single post item 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 accessing an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to 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:
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy the category link address to your clipboard …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for category)
The category RSS feed now only displays content published under that particular 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 – Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds
You can provide your own feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like large websites …
(Set Up Your Own Feeds Page)
All you need to do is link a button to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about creating tables in WordPress posts and pages, go here:
RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several 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 types that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of feeds you can create …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
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 – RSS feed that contains the latest comments posted on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/06/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed that contains latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed that displays the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the 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 feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality content that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content from other sites and get online users 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 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- Download RSS Graphics – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and reference site. Visit this site for more information about using feeds in WordPress.
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 content from other websites on your site using RSS.
Hopefully, now you 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 the benefits of using the WP CMS software please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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