No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, providing quality information to your blog users is important. For example, if you provide travel-related services, it’s a good idea to provide users with useful information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, advice from embassies, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure 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 an easier way to keep your users up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your site visitors with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Basic Information About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- When a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for content updates. Instead, their web browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news, video lists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML 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 websites and then browse updates posted on these sites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their information.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and 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 let you combine many RSS feeds to display news and updates from several different sources.
This comprehensive guide shows you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide web users with a simple and easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Media publications rely on content syndication to publish news from news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows most news publishers to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and newsworthy stories from all around the globe without actually having to employ and send more staff to every location around the world …
(Media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Digital publishers syndicate their content using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by digital content agencies to share newsworthy content with other news publications)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Major sites have a feed section (look for menu links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major sites contain a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(A website’s directory of RSS feeds. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These RSS feed items give readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, health news, etc.)
An RSS feed list can also contain feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use a feed, all you have to do is copy the URL and paste it 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 gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
While adding feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other websites to syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(It’s worth trying to get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on your sidebar or footer …
(The feed will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the WordPress 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 just as a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feeds display)
We have written a detailed tutorial on WordPress Post excerpts 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 to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link …
(Search for an RSS feed link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
Adding Feeds To WordPress Sites
Let’s show you how to add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress 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 importing content from their feed. You can use feeds to 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 from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
copy the RSS feed from a website or blog that publishes content that you would like to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget 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 browser. The content will now show on the sidebar …
(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 WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of the sidebar?
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are a number of plugins you can check out that allow you to add RSS feeds to your pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, borders, fonts, 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.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or 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 – WordPress Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
You can inspect these by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen on a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed items displayed with a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: 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 – Using RSS Feeds For Specific Posts
Being able to create 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 using an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your site publishes content under different categories, you can easily provide a separate feed for each category.
Just use the format below:
(Feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your category URL …)
And add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WP post categories feed)
The category RSS feed now only displays content assigned to 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 – Set Up Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Your Subscribers
You can provide your own feeds page that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like large authoritative sites …
(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)
All you need to do is link a button icon to a feed URL and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress, go here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed types without editing code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feeds you can create …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Contains the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that contains individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/08/16/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/05/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed containing latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed containing latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let users know that they can subscribe to your feed. Make sure you place a subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get others to subscribe to 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 RSS feed 🙂
Resources:
- Feed Graphics – Visit feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation site. Visit this site for more information about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know 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 on your site using RSS.
Hopefully, this post 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 the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please see our related posts section.
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