No matter what product or service you provide, you need to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide medical services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it requires an enormous amount of time and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your facts, write and edit 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 not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much easier way to keep your users up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your users with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- When users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for content updates. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the content and keeps subscribers updated.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, audios, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata like date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites and blogs that publish feeds and then view updates posted on these sites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate web content.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed readers. 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 compatibility with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from multiple sites.
In this detailed guide, we show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for web users to receive the latest information published on sites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Media publications rely on content syndication to publish stories from news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows many news reporting agencies and influential online publications to deliver readers the latest news and the most recent newsworthy content from all around the globe without actually having to hire and send more reporters all around the world …
(Most news reporting agencies rely heavily on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Online newspapers syndicate their information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share content with other publications)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web traffic.
Leading online newspapers will contain a feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “star tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news agencies and leading online media publications contain a feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Image: NY Times RSS)
These RSS feeds let you source different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is 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 Using RSS Feeds
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business 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 and blogs syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress Feed – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer …
(The feed page will display as many recent 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 feeds is whether to display posts as full text, or as a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how content in feeds will appear)
We have created a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view the content of a 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.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress Sites
In the example below, we’ll add RSS content from another website to your site.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you could display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook 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 website that publishes content that you want to add to your sidebar …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content can now be seen on your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been added – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(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 An RSS Feed To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
The plugins below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
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 lets you import RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
POWr RSS Feed lets you automatically combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all phones, tablets, and computers and supports text in any language.
The premium edition of POWr contains a number of additional features.
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 loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress-generated content.
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 sites, or bring together all of 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 in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
Install RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
To access these comments, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content seen on a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed entries as seen on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed 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 WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Single Item Feeds
Being able to use an RSS feed for a specific 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:
(RSS Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and add “/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 your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content about certain topics. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create separate category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And append “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
The RSS feed now only includes content published in that particular category …
(Category-specific 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 – Provide An RSS Feeds List
You can set up your own directory of feeds on your site that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories, just like the larger websites do …
(Set Up A Feeds List)
Link an RSS button graphic like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
We have created a detailed tutorial on adding tables to WordPress posts and pages here:
RSS – Notes
You can customize your RSS in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations that do not require touching code. For example, here are some of the kinds of custom feed types you can create …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that displays the latest comments left on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed containing latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/05/05/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed displaying latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ buttons somewhere visible …
(Remember to promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content to your site and get online users to syndicate your content with WordPress and RSS!)
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 feed 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Feed Images – Visit feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and information. Go here for additional information about using feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum