No matter what what industry you belong to, providing high-quality information to your blog users is vitally important. For example, if you provide taxation services, you may want to publish useful information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.

The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sorting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually 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 well beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your users up-to-date with great information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your site visitors with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

What You Need To Know About RSS

• RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog post items, news, music playlists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
• RSS feeds can be viewed using software called feedreaders, or feed aggregators. Feedreaders can be used to find new content published on websites and distribute this content online.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feedreaders, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from many different sites.

This article explains 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.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

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

First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.

Online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources all around the world.

Syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers interesting stories and the latest newsworthy items from around the globe without actually having to employ and set up more news reporters and content writers in every place around the world …

(Online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the globe.)

Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …

(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share information with other publications)

Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also drives 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.

Major sites have an RSS feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “star tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Major sites contain an RSS feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of different RSS feeds of the site …

(A list of different feeds. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

Each of these RSS feeds lets you access information about different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, editorials, etc.)

Feed sections can also include subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is simply a URL. All you have to do to use an RSS feed is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Syndicating Content

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

(Content Syndication 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 there are benefits in getting other sites to use your content.

When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …

(Look for ways to get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)

Your WordPress RSS

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

Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:

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

(Access your WordPress RSS feed from the Entries RSS menu)

2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.

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

(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

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

(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Subscribe, 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 subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

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

(RSS feed entries viewed on a Firefox browser)

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

(Feed entries viewed on Google Chrome)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

Specify how many posts you would like to show in your Feeds section in the Reading Settings section. Enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Reading Settings – Syndication items setting)

The feed will display as many recent items you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section …

(The feed will show the number of items you have specified in your 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 RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or a summary …

(WordPress Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …

(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will appear)

To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:

• How To Use Excerpts In WordPress Posts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and look for an RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Search for an RSS feed section. 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 a feed reader …

(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)

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

How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site

In the example below, we are going to add content from another site to yours.

Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you can easily add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like 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 menu …

(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)

First, find a website or blog that publishes content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy the RSS feed to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)

Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Area – RSS Widget)

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In The Website

Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add RSS Feed Content To Posts

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

You can do this using plugins. Search inside the Plugins admin section for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.

Here are a few plugins you can check out that let you add RSS feeds to your pages and posts:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)

WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into campaigns and categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.

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

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin)

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

The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

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

The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.

The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a versatile Atom/RSS syndication plugin 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.

FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or display all of your online activity in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)

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

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev WP Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)

Install 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:

• RSS Includes Pages Plugin

Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts.

You can inspect your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …

(Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed items seen on a Firefox browser)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …

(Comments feed items as seen with Google Chrome)

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

(Paste your comments feed URL 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 WordPress installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Individual Post Feeds

Being able to use an RSS feed for single posts 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 using an RSS feed for an individual post item is shown below:

(Specific Post Feed)

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 append “/feed” to the end of the post address, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual post content itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds

Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.

All you have to do is use the format below:

(WP category RSS feed format)

Copy the selected category URL …

(Select and copy your category link address …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(Use this format for WordPress category feed)

The category RSS feed will now only contain content posted under 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 – Set Up Your Own Page Of Feeds On Your Site

You can provide a feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger websites do …

(Set Up Your Own List Of Feeds For Your Site Visitors)

You can also link an RSS graphic like the one shown below to your category feeds and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button image. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts, go here:

• How To Easily Create And Add Tables To Your Content Without Touching Code

WordPress RSS – Additional Notes

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

WordPress allows you to configure several feed formats that do not require touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feed types you can display …

(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)

For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed 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 – Includes the latest comments left on your blog
• 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: RSS Feed that includes the latest comments made on a post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Displays the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/08/01/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/02/feed/

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

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

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Feed that includes latest items 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 feed. Make sure you place your subscribe links somewhere visible …

(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Add content from other sites and get visitors to share your content with 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 RSS feed 🙂

Resources:

• RSS Buttons – Visit Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing RSS specifications, guiding developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
• WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference. Go here for more information about using WordPress RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using their RSS feed.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress please see our related posts section.

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