No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, providing quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s a good idea to publish 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 is really time-consuming. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton of information, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is kept 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.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to provide your readers with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Useful Information
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and keeps subscribers updated.
- Feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, audio lists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML 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 blogs that publish feeds and then browse any updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different machines, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from multiple sources.
In this detailed guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add content from other sites to your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful method used to share content online. Feeds provide online users with an easy way to receive the latest information posted on sites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Most news reporting agencies use syndication to publish content from news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows leading online newspapers to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics from around the globe without having to employ and post additional news reporting departments to every place around the world …
(Many news reporting agencies rely heavily on syndication to publish content from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)
Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows great information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Many news reporting agencies and major sites have a feed section (look for menu links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, 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.) …
(Major content sites have an RSS feed section. Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Image: nytimes.com)
These feeds allow you to source different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, travel news, health news, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s content, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Consider trying to get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
About Your WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a standard or custom menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find links and buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the 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 which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Follow, or Links slide-out, floating, or fixed toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Follow, or Share toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by simply 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 WP installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …
(Feed items as seen on a Firefox browser)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS feed content displayed with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you would like displayed in your RSS page, by going to your Reading Settings section and entering the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feed items)
The feed page will show the number of items you have specified in your Reading Settings section …
(Your feed page will show the number of posts as you have specified in the WordPress 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 your posts as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds will appear)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on using excerpts in WordPress Posts, go here:
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 to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and look for a ‘subscribe’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed button. Image source: 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 feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another website to your site.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can easily display on your site the latest news 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 such as 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 …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website containing content that you want to add to your sidebar and copy its RSS feed URL …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your website in your browser. The content will now show in your sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To Sidebar)
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 Feeds To Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar?
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your Plugins section for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a few auto blogging tools that let you automatically create posts using feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is an advanced importer that lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin allows you to automatically combine content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any phone, computer, or tablet and supports text in any language.
The premium version contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
WP Pipes 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 loads of features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress is a versatile 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 various different sources), or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. You can use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available.
You can access this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors display in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content viewed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: 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 site has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Single Post Items
Being able to create an RSS feed for single 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 an individual post item is shown below:
(Feed For Specific Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can easily create category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the category URL …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed will now only contain content specific to this particular category …
(Category RSS feed)
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 Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds
You can set up your own directory of feeds for visitors that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like large websites …
(Set Up Your Own List Of RSS Feeds On Your Site)
Link an RSS button image to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress posts and pages, go here:
RSS Feeds – Notes
You can customize your RSS in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows different RSS feed configurations without messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feed types you can use …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that displays a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that includes the latest comments made on a single post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/12/14/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/04/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ buttons in a visible location …
(Encourage your site users to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add great content to your site and get online users to share your content with RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Resources:
- Download RSS Feed Buttons – Visit a site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about RSS.
- WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds – WordPress software documentation site. Go here to learn more about WordPress RSS feeds.
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 content from other websites and blogs to your site via RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WordPress CMS platform please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)