No matter what service or product your business provides, it’s vitally important to provide quality information on your site or blog that educates, informs, or improves engagement with your visitors. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s a good idea to include information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from consular offices, etc.

The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data gathering, researching and organizing, checking sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (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 beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is an easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The simplest way to provide your users with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – Simple Overview

• RSS is short for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
• After users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers up-to-date.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, videos, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata like published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and blogs that publish feeds and then browse any updates posted on these websites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their content.
• Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different machines and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from various websites.

In this guide, we explain where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other websites to your site using RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for online users to receive the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s take a look at syndication.

Global media and news publishers use syndication to publish content from content sources around the world.

Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers global stories and the most recent newsworthy content from all over the planet without having to send more news reporting agencies everywhere around the world …

(Media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the planet.)

Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content with other sites. News reporting agencies syndicate stories using feeds …

(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content)

Most sites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Major content sites provide links to an RSS 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”, “belfast telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Major sites have a feed section. Image: smh.com.au )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(RSS feeds list. Source: NY Times RSS)

These RSS feeds allow readers to source different areas of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further feed subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: Los Angeles Times RSS)

Note: A feed is just a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Content Syndication

Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s business additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …

(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)

While adding feeds 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 use your content.

When other sites syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Get users to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)

WordPress Feed – About

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)

2) You can also find links and buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.

For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On some sites and again, depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Social Share, or Stay In Touch toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Follow, or Links fixed, slide-out, or floating toolbar)

4) You can also view your RSS feed by simply 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 is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS feed …

(RSS feed entries as seen with a Firefox browser)

Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(RSS items viewed on a Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many posts you would like to display in your RSS section, by going to your Reading Settings section and selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication feed items field)

Your feed section will show the number of items you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section …

(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

Another setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just a summary …

(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how a feed will display)

We have written a detailed tutorial about using Post excerpts in WordPress here:

• WordPress Post Excerpts A Guide For WordPress Beginners

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.

Let’s take a look at how this works.

First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for a ‘subscribe’ button 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 URL of your feed)

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: http://feedreader.com/online)

Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your subscribers.

How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site

Let’s show you how to add content from another website or blog to your site.

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can easily add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing 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 RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …

(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)

copy the RSS feed from a site that publishes content that you want to add to your sidebar to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed will now show in the sidebar …

(RSS Feed Added To WP Sidebar Menu)

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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feed Content To Posts

What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar?

You can easily do this using plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.

The plugins listed below are useful if you want to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.

You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico WP Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers extended functionality with premium add-ons.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)

The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of every item in the feed as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer WP Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.

This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom backgrounds, fonts, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any computer, tablet, or phone and supports text in all languages.

The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed

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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)

FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress-generated 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.

You can use this plugin to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog)

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, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available.

You can access this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar …

(Comments Feed)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content viewed with Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …

(Comments feed items viewed on Google Chrome)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …

(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader 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 – Specific Item RSS Feeds

Being able to access an RSS feed for individual post items can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.

The formula for making an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:

(Feed For Single Post Item)

To create the above feed, copy the post URL, 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 post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not the content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from specific categories. 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:

(WP category feed format)

Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the selected category URL …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress category feed format)

The RSS feed now only contains content assigned to that 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 Feeds Page

You can publish your own feeds page that allows readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …

(Provide An RSS Feeds Directory)

Link an icon like the one shown below to each category feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …

(RSS image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)

To learn more about creating tables in WordPress pages and posts, refer to this tutorial:

• Inserting Tables Into Posts And Pages In WordPress

RSS Feeds – Additional Notes

You can customize RSS in several different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of feed formats you can create …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)

For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – RSS feed that displays your latest post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Feed that contains the latest comments published on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing individual items
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Includes the latest comments made on an individual post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Feed containing latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/10/30/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/10/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Contains the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Displays 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 posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One last thing …

It’s a good idea to promote your feeds. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ link in a visible location …

(Promote your RSS feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if the information that you publish on your site is useful, informative, or highly engaging. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add content to your site and get others to subscribe to 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:

• RSS Feed Graphics – Visit www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing RSS specifications, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about using RSS.
• WordPress.org/Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and reference repository. Visit this site for additional information about WordPress and RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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