No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information to your blog readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide insurance services, you may want to publish useful information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical research, insurance tips, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it takes an enormous amount of effort and resources. You have to sort through, gather, and organize a ton of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to continually provide your readers with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your blog subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Basic Information About RSS
- RSS is short for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- After users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser constantly monitors the site and keeps feed subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog post items, news headlines, audio lists, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML (XML = Extensible Markup Language) document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata such as published date, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse any updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their web content automatically.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from several different sources.
This detailed guide explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 powerful and legitimate method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide online users with an easy way to receive the latest information posted on different websites.
First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.
Media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers and leading online media publications to deliver readers stories and news from all over the planet without having to send more content writers to every location around the world …
(Many digital publishing agencies rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Global media publications syndicate content using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate their news stories using feeds)
Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web traffic.
Many news reporting agencies and leading online media publications will include a feed section (look for links in their navigation section 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.) …
(Major sites have a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of different RSS feeds of the site …
(A list of RSS feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)
These RSS feed items give readers access to content about different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategories …
(An RSS feed directory can also include feed subdirectories. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you have to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
While adding RSS feeds 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 sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(It’s a good idea to get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
About Your WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in a navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS 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 URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many 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 Subscribe section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Keep In Touch, Link To Us, or Social Share floating, fixed, or slide-out toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s RSS 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 is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your site’s feed …
(Feed items seen on a Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Feed items viewed on Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many entries you want to display in your Feeds section, go to your Reading Settings section and type in the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication items)
The feed will display as many recent items you have specified in the Reading Settings section …
(The feed will show the number of 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 Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display each article as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how your feeds will display)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from another site to your site.
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 news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as 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 …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a site containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy the RSS feed URL …
(Copy the feed URL)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now display on your sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To 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:
Adding RSS Feeds To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
The plugins listed below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WP Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of this plugin 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 WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a flexible 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine content from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages WP Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages 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 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts.
To access this feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget 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 will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items displayed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the 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 website is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Specific Posts
Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post item 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 creating an RSS feed for single post items is shown below:
(Individual Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site publishes content under several categories, you can offer subscribers a separate RSS feed for each category.
Just use the format shown below:
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy the selected category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress category RSS feed)
Your RSS feed now only contains content posted for that particular 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 – Create A Page Of Feeds
You can create your own list of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe to specific content, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)
All you need to do is link a button icon like the one shown below to a feed and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have written a detailed tutorial on creating tables in WordPress pages and posts here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several feed configurations that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feed types you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed containing the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/01/29/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/07/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed that includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/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 RSS feeds. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ button somewhere visible …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide useful content that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add someone else’s content and get other users to syndicate your content online 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 RSS feed 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Icons – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – WordPress software documentation and reference. Go here for more information about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have 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 the WordPress software please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)