No matter what your business sells or what industry you are a part of, it’s important to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to include useful information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a ton of information sorting, researching and organizing, checking sources for accuracy, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to continually provide your readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- After users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, audio lists, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata like date of publishing, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse any updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their content.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and 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, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates from multiple sources.
This guide explains where 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 and blogs on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful method used for sharing content online. Feeds provide an easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how content syndication is used.
Global media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows digital agencies and many highly-visited media publications to deliver readers the latest news and newsworthy content from around the planet without having to post more staff all around the world …
(Global media publications use syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share information with other news publications)
Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Leading online newspapers provide links to an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “salt lake tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most news reporting agencies and major online media publications have a feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use feeds, all you need to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)
While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s worth keeping in mind that you also want other websites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate content using your feed, this gives your business the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Look for ways to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
Your WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(The feed page will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed appears)
If you need help 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 and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed 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 Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from another site’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can easily display on your site the latest news 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 updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website or blog containing content that you want to add to your sidebar …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content can now be seen on your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed 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:
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of the sidebar? You sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
Here are some autoblogging plugins for WordPress that let you automatically create new with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
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 campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with additional functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is a popular, feature-rich importer that allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.
The premium version contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create 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, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a flexible 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or display all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the feed a name of your choosing (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 Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
You can inspect these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed 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 website has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Single Items
Being able to create an RSS feed for an individual post 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 single post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Specific Post)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can create category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(Use this format for WordPress post categories feed)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
The feed now only includes content assigned to that particular category …
(Category 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 Page Of RSS Feeds
You can create an RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like large websites …
(Publish Your Own RSS Feeds List)
Link an RSS button graphic to category (or single post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS icon. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress, go here:
RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed types without messing with code. For example, here are some of the kinds of custom feed types you can use …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments posted on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that includes specific post entries
- 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 post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/07/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed containing latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed that contains the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed that displays the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feed. Place a subscribe links in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide useful information. In other words, provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add great content to your site and get visitors to share your content online 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 feed 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Download RSS Images – Visit Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation and reference. Go here to learn more about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other websites and blogs to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using the WP CMS software please see our related posts section.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com