No matter what what industry you are in, you need to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides taxation services, it’s a good idea to publish useful information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of information sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, content writing and editing (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 is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your site visitors with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Basic Information About RSS
- RSS, which, according to some is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- Feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, audios, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes full or summarized text along with other metadata such as published date, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and blogs that publish feeds and then view any updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from different sources.
In this guide, you are going to learn where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple way to receive the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Digital news publishers rely heavily on content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics as well as newsworthy content from around the planet without having to hire additional staff and news writers in every location around the world …
(Global media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most websites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content 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”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most leading online media publications have an RSS feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS feeds section. Image Source: NY Times RSS)
gives readers access to content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is only a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and helps you by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding a feed 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 you also want other sites to use YOUR content.
When other websites syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Consider trying to get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your traffic!)
WordPress Feed – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed will show 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 RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feeds display)
If you need help Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of a feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content.
Adding Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other site’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you can add to your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
copy the RSS feed URL from a website containing content that you want to add to your site 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 using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now show on the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Added To Sidebar)
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 Feeds To Your Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to a post instead of a sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside the Plugins admin screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
Here are a few plugins you can check out that allow you to add RSS feeds to your site:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers extended functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
POWr RSS allows you to combine content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, tablets, and phones and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of this plugin contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
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, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible syndication plugin for WordPress content.
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 site (sites that bring together posts from different sources), or display 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 by WPMUDev WP Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.
You can inspect this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen on Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed items viewed using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
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 or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Post RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for a single 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 a specific post item is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the URL 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 post URI, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can easily create separate category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WordPress post categories feed format)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
Your RSS feed now only contains content published in this category …
(Category-specific RSS feed page)
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 – Create Your Own Feeds Page
You can create your own directory of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Provide Your Own Feeds Directory)
You can also link an RSS graphic to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. 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 posts and pages, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations that do not require touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/04/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed displaying latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe button somewhere visible …
(Remember to promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you provide useful content. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get other sites to share your content using 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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- Feed Buttons – Visit a site like FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing RSS specifications, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping the public to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation site. 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 display content from other websites and blogs on your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about the benefits of using the WordPress CMS platform please see our related posts section.
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