No matter what what industry you belong to, it’s vitally important to provide high-quality information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, or improves engagement with your readers. For example, if you provide accounting services, it’s not a bad idea to include information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it requires a great deal of effort and expertise. You have to do a ton of information sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, 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 not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much easier way to regularly provide your site readers with expert, up-to-date 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
RSS – Basic Definition
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save users time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, video playlists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- RSS feed content can be read with software called feed readers, or feed aggregators. Aggregators can be used to access content on all different kinds of topics and syndicate this content online.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different machines, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this in-depth guide, you are going to learn where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful 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 sites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Most online newspapers and many highly-visited media publications rely on syndication to publish content from news sources around the world.
Content syndication allows news publishers to deliver readers stories and news items from all over the planet without having to send additional news reporting agencies to every location in the world …
(Online newspapers rely heavily on syndication to publish stories from news sources around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate news stories using news feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate their content using feeds)
Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Many news reporting agencies and leading online media publications include an RSS feed section (look for links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier mail rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most news reporting agencies will contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS Feeds. Image: NY Times RSS)
gives you access to information about different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
A feed list can also contain subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use an RSS feed is copy the URL and paste it into software 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 someone else’s site additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 a great idea to try and get other websites to use YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(It’s a good idea to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
Your WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar …
(The feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles in your feed as full text, or a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will appear)
We have created 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 and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for a ‘subscribe’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed link. 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 what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
How To Add A Feed To Your Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites or blogs to yours.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you could easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, find a website or blog that publishes content that you want to add to your site and copy its RSS feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the 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 using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display 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:
Adding RSS Feed Content To Your WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post instead of your sidebar? It sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are a few autoblogging plugins that allow you to automatically add posts using RSS feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers additional functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.
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 RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full 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)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication 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 site (sites that combine and display posts from different sources), or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available.
You can see this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items as seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. 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 WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Post Item Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for single posts 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 making an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Feed For Specific Post Item)
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 append “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content about specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website contains content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer subscribers a separate feed for each post category.
Just use the format below:
(Use this format for WP category feed)
Copy the category link address …
(Copy the category link address …)
And add “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
Your category feed now only includes content published under this category …
(Category 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 RSS Feeds Page
You can provide your own RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to specific content, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Publish A Feeds Directory)
Link a button image to category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS image. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in a number of 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 formats that do not require editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed that contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/12/27/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to let your users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Place your subscribe buttons in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get online users to share your content using RSS feeds!)
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 – Additional Resources:
- Download RSS Buttons – Visit an online resource site like Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, guiding developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation. Visit this site for additional information about using feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business web site please see other great content on this site.
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