No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, providing quality information to your site readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with useful information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from consulates, etc.

The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of information sorting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a much simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the simplest way to provide your users with the latest information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Some Basic Information About RSS

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• After a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the site and automatically keep subscribers updated.
• Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog posts, news, audio lists, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata such as published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then keep up with any updates posted on these sites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their content.
• Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) 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 let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from a number of sites.

In this guide, you are going to learn 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 via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide an easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on sites they are interested in.

First, let’s take a look at syndication.

News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies around the world.

Content syndication allows most digital content agencies to deliver readers stories and newsworthy content from all around the globe without actually having to send more reporters all around the world …

(Media publications rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources all around the world.)

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

(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share newsworthy content with other publications)

Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web traffic.

Many news reporting agencies and major content sites provide links to an RSS feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “nz herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most leading online media publications will contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )

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

(RSS feeds section. Image Source: New York Times RSS)

These feeds give you access to information about different sections of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, jobs, etc.)

Feed sections can also include subcategories …

(An RSS list can also include feed subcategories. Image Source: Los Angeles Times)

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

The Benefits Of Content Syndication

Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s content additional exposure online, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create this content …

(Using RSS Feeds)

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 websites to use your content.

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

(Get visitors to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress Feed – About

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

Depending on your theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:

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

(WordPress Meta widget)

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

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

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

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

(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Social Share, or Follow slide-out, fixed, or floating toolbar)

4) You can also view your feed by 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 has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

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

(Feed items as seen with a Firefox web browser)

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

(Feed items as seen using a Google Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

To specify how many entries you want displayed in your Feeds section, go to your Reading Settings section and select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Reading Settings – Syndication items field)

Your feed will display the number of items you have specified section …

(Your feed will display as many recent items you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

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

(Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …

(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds will appear)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:

• Post Excerpts - Step-By-Step Tutorial

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s see how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ link or button …

(Search for a ‘subscribe’ 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 what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …

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

Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content.

Adding A Feed To Your WP Site

In the example below, we are going to add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.

Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily display on 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 use 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 from an RSS feed to your sidebar …

(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)

copy the RSS feed from a website that publishes content that you want to display on your sidebar …

(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)

Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)

To learn more about using widgets, go here:

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Refresh your web browser. The content should now display in 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

Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts

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

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

(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins)

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

Here are some plugins you can check out that let you add RSS feeds to your pages:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin)

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

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

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 plugin for WordPress that offers additional functionality with a number of premium add-ons.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to import RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

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

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each item in the feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed)

With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from various sources using RSS feeds.

This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.

The premium version of POWr contains a number of additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)

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

This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes WP Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress site-generated content.

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 site (sites that bring together posts from various different sources), or display all of your online activity in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog

(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)

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 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 by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

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

By default, WordPress only includes 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:

• RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin

Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments.

To view your comments feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget area on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

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

(RSS comments feed entries as seen with a Firefox browser)

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

(Comments feed entries seen on Google Chrome)

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

(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Single Posts

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

(RSS Feed For Individual Post)

To create the above feed, copy the URI 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 the post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds

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

With WordPress, you can create category feeds.

Just use the format shown below:

(Use this format for WordPress category feed)

Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the selected category URL …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(Format for WP category RSS feed)

The RSS feed will now only contain content posted for that 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 – Publish A Feeds Page

You can create your own RSS feeds list that allows readers to subscribe only to specific categories, just like large websites …

(Publish A Feeds List)

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

(RSS graphic. Image: 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 content, refer to this tutorial:

• How To Add Tables To WordPress Pages And Posts

RSS Feeds – Notes

Feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to configure a number of different feed types that do not require messing with code. For example, here are some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use …

(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)

Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:

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

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Feed displaying the latest comments posted on your site
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing specific post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-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 – Includes the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/09/12/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/10/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/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: Contains the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

Remember to promote your feed. Make sure you place your subscribe button image somewhere visible …

(Remember to promote your feeds!)

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

(Add someone else’s content and get other users to share your content using RSS feeds!)

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 Resources:

• Download RSS Feed Icons – Visit an online resource site like Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss buttons”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS graphics.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
• WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference repository. Go here to learn more about using WordPress RSS feeds.

Congratulations! Now you know where 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 their RSS feed.

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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