No matter what what industry you belong to, providing high-value information to your site users is vitally important. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to provide users with information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sorting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure 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 beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much simpler way to regularly provide your users with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- After users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for content updates. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news, videos, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata like published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites and blogs that publish feeds and then keep up with any updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from a number of websites.
This article shows you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other sites on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with a way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Global media publications rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows digital publishers to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and content of general interest from all over the globe without actually having to set up more news staff all around the world …
(News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. News reporting agencies syndicate information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share newsworthy content with other news publications)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Many news reporting agencies and major online media publications have an RSS feed section (look for links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major sites provide links to a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(A site’s directory of feeds. Image Source: NY Times RSS)
These feed items allow readers to access content about different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategories …
(An RSS list can also contain subcategories. Image: LA Times)
Note: A feed is only a URL. All that’s required to use an RSS feed is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Using Feeds
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and helps you by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(RSS Feeds - Benefits)
While adding 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 websites to syndicate your content.
When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(It’s a good idea to get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
Overview Of The WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed on the sidebar, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find links and buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On many websites and again, depending on the theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Stay In Touch, Links, or Social Share toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Social Share, or Subscribe toolbar section)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s 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 website or blog is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS feed page …
(Feed items seen using Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(Feed items viewed with a Chrome browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many entries you want displayed in your Feeds section in the Reading Settings section. Type the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
Your feed section will show the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display posts in your feed as full text, or a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feeds will appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for their RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed icon. Image source: http://www.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 feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other websites and blogs to yours.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing 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 content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar …
(Add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content should appear in your 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:
Adding A Feed To Your Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts? Yes, you can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins listed below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you select.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them into 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 that offers additional functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.
The premium version contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your 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 For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a versatile 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, give it a name of your choosing (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 Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin if you would like to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts.
To see this feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries as seen on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries as seen using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Individual Posts
Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post 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 creating an RSS feed for single posts is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Specific 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 append “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS 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.
With WordPress, you can create category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(WP post categories RSS feed format)
Copy the category URL …
(Copy your category URL …)
Now, append “feed” to the end of it …
(WP category feed format)
The feed will now only display content assigned to this 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 – Publish An RSS Feeds Page
You can provide your own list of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe to specific content, just like large websites …
(Provide Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)
You can also link an RSS image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about creating tables in WordPress content, go here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
Feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of different feed formats that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples 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 image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed containing the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that contains single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/11/21/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Place your subscribe button somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add someone else’s content and get online users to share 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:
- RSS Icons – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and information. Visit this site 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 RSS, and how to display content from other websites on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website 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