No matter what service or product your business provides, you need to provide high-value information to your site or blog readers. For example, if your business provides insurance services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of information gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (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 is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much easier way to continually provide your users with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your users with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save users time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, news headlines, video playlists, etc., which users can then subscribe to.
- RSS feed content can be viewed with software programs called RSS feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders are used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and any updates made to the content) to other sites.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. Feeds provide web users with a way to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at the concept of content syndication.
Global media and online newspapers rely on syndication to publish content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows leading online newspapers to deliver readers global stories and the most recent newsworthy items from around the globe without actually having to employ and set up additional news reporting departments in every location in the world …
(Many news reporting agencies use content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. News reporting agencies syndicate news stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Many news reporting agencies and major online media publications will contain a feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, 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.) …
(Many news reporting agencies provide links to an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image Source: NY Times RSS)
Each of these feeds allows readers to access information from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, health news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All you have to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website 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 use your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta section)
2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Link To Us, or Social Share toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Share, or Subscribe toolbar)
4) You can also view your RSS 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 website is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS …
(Feed entries as seen on Firefox browser)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Feed items as seen on a Chrome browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you would like to show in your RSS Feed page in the Reading Settings section. Enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Syndication items field)
Your feed section will show as many recent items you have specified section …
(Your feed will show the number of items 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 Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display posts as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feeds will display)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon or link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed section. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add A Feed To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content from other website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing 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 RSS content to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget) …
(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:
Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are some autoblogging plugins for WordPress that let you automatically add posts with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them according to campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, import, curate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in your 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 multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any phone, tablet, or computer and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin edition contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress is a simple and 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that bring together posts from multiple sources), or display all your online activity in one place.
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. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name (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)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can see this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed content seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 website or blog has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Individual Item Feeds
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 items to RSS directories, 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 web address of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website displays content published under several categories, you can provide a separate RSS feed for each post category.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(WP post categories RSS feed format)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WP post categories RSS feed)
The feed now only contains content posted for that 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 – Publish Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Your Visitors
You can create a directory of RSS feeds for your site visitors that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Provide An RSS Feeds Page)
You can also link a button image like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a new page …
(RSS button graphic. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have written a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts here:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed types that do not require touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed types you can create …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments left on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that contains specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/03/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed that contains the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button image somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add content from other sites 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Resources:
- Download RSS Feed Graphics – Visit sites like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and information. Go here for more information about RSS feeds in WordPress.
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 sites to your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress please see other great articles and tutorials we have published on this site.
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