No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, it’s vitally important to provide quality information to your site users. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with useful information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.

The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it requires a lot of effort and resources. You have to do a ton of information sifting, researching and organizing, checking sources for accuracy, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually kept 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 entirely beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to provide your site readers with great information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the easiest way to provide your users with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Does It Mean?

• RSS, which, according to some is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
• Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the content 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 headlines, audio lists, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
• You can read an RSS feed with a software called a feedreader, or feed aggregator. Aggregators can be used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and updates made to this content) to online properties.
• Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed readers. 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, readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also let you combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from several different sources.

This detailed article explains where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other websites to your site via their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate way to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to receive the latest information posted on different sites.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Many digital content publishers use content syndication to publish news and stories from news agencies all around the world.

Syndication allows most leading digital news agencies to deliver readers interesting stories and the latest newsworthy content from all over the globe without actually having to hire additional news writers all around the world …

(Online newspapers rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources all around the world.)

Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …

(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)

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

Most leading online media publications have a 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”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most news reporting agencies and leading online media publications include a feed section. Image: SMH )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …

(RSS Feeds. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

gives you access to information from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)

A feed directory can also include feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is only a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you have to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Syndicating Content

Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s business and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …

(The Benefits Of Content Syndication)

While adding RSS 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 you also want other websites to syndicate your content.

When other sites syndicate content using your feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Look for ways to get other websites and blogs to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

Your WordPress RSS

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.

Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:

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

(WordPress Meta widget – Accessing your RSS feed)

2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors 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 links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)

3) On many sites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Social Share, Follow, or Link To Us slide-out, fixed, or floating toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Keep In Touch, or Social Share toolbar section)

4) You can also view your feed by simply typing your site’s URL into a web browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WP installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

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

(RSS entries displayed on Firefox web browser)

Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which browser you use …

(RSS feed items seen on a Google Chrome web browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many posts you would like displayed in your RSS Feed section in the Reading Settings section. Enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication feed items setting)

Your feed section will display as many recent posts as you have specified in your Reading Settings section …

(Your feed will show the number of items 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 RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or a summary …

(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)

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

(Post excerpts can affect how a feed will appear)

To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• WordPress Post Excerpts Explained

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view the content of a feed is 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 their RSS feed button using any of the methods described earlier …

(Search for an RSS feed icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy your feed URL)

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

(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)

Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.

How To Add An RSS Feed To WordPress

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

Adding Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are 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 use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media 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 your sidebar)

First, Find a site that publishes content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy its feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

To learn more about using widgets, go here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Load your website in your web browser. The content can now be seen on 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding Content From RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts

Can you add content from RSS feeds to a post? You sure can!

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.

The plugins below can be used to 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 easy to use plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

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

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)

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

For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)

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

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer WP Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed)

With POWr RSS, you can automatically combine and display content from multiple RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in every language.

The premium version 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:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes)

The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create 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 Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress WP Plugin)

FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible syndication options for WordPress.

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.

You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine posts from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, 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:

• Autoblog Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)

By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

Using RSS – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments.

To view this, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …

(Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed entries viewed on Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …

(Comments feed entries seen using Google Chrome)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …

(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Individual Items

Being able to create an RSS feed for individual post items 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 displaying an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:

(RSS Feed For Specific Post)

To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post RSS Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post address, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Category Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content about specific topics. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

If your website displays content published under several categories, you can provide a separate feed for each post category.

All you have to do is use the format shown below:

(WP category feed format)

Copy the category URL …

(Copy your category URL …)

Append “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress post categories feed format)

The RSS feed now only includes content published under this category …

(Category-specific 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 – Provide Your Own Feeds Page

You can provide your own page of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger authoritative sites do …

(Provide Your Own Directory Of Feeds)

All you need to do is link a button graphic like the one shown below to a category feed URL and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a separate page …

(RSS icon. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)

To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts, go here:

• Adding Tables In WordPress

RSS – Notes

You can customize your feeds in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of feeds you can display …

(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)

Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing specific posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Displays the latest comments made on a single post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Feed containing the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/07/17/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/09/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Contains latest entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Contains 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 RSS feed. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links somewhere visible …

(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)

Also, keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add someone else’s content and get other users to share your content with WordPress and RSS!)

If you need great 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 Graphics – Visit sites like iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss buttons”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS graphics.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
• WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and information site. Go here for more information about using WordPress RSS feeds.

Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please see our related posts section.

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