No matter what your business sells or what industry you belong to, providing high-value information to your blog users is important. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to provide users with information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a lot of information, check your facts, write and edit 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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- When users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the site and keep feed subscribers automatically updated.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, audio lists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- You can read an RSS feed with a program called a feed reader, or aggregator. Aggregators can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content to online properties.
- There are different kinds of feeds, 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 compatibility with different devices, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from multiple websites.
This article explains where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful method used to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Online media publications use content syndication to publish news from news sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows most leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories from around the planet without actually having to set up additional content writers everywhere in the world …
(News reporting agencies and leading media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content. online media publications syndicate information using news feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate their content using feeds)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content sites include 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”, “belfast telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major content sites will have an RSS feed section. Image: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Image: New York Times RSS)
gives readers access to content about different areas of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, jobs, etc.)
A feed list can also contain feed subcategories …
(Feed sections can also contain subcategories. Image Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use the feed is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s website on your site has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s a great idea to try and get other websites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get other sites to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
WordPress RSS
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(Your feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds appear)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view the content of a feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link …
(Look for an RSS feed section. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of your feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other website’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can easily 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Find a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy its feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content will now display in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been added – e.g. custom menu, footer, etc) …
(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 Add RSS Feeds To Your Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar? It sure can!
You can do this using plugins. Search inside the ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.
Here are some plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your pages and posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you select.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is an advanced, feature-rich importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.
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:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress.
As stated in the FeedWordPress website …
FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that combine content from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog 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, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you would like to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To view these, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items as seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed items displayed with a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Note: If the Meta section is not displaying on your theme, you can view the Comments RSS section of your site by opening up a browser and typing in the following URL:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/comments/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/comments/feed (if your WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Specific Post RSS Feeds
Being able to select 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 accessing an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from a particular post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can create separate category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for category)
Your RSS feed now only contains content published in this particular 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 – Provide Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Visitors
You can create a directory of feeds for subscribers that allows readers to subscribe to specific content …
(Set Up A Page Of RSS Feeds)
Link an RSS graphic like the one shown below to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all your individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress posts, go here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed types that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of feed types you can use …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments posted on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/07/05/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the 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 last thing …
It’s a good idea to promote your feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link or button in a visible location …
(Encourage your site users to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get other sites to syndicate your content using WordPress and RSS!)
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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Feed Buttons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and information repository. Go here for additional information about using WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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