No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, it’s vitally important to provide high-value information to your site users. For example, if you provide travel services, you may want to include useful information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.

The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it involves a great deal of time and expertise. You have to do a ton of information sorting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing 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 huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.

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

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the simplest way to provide your subscribers with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Some Basic Information About RSS

• RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog post items, news headlines, audios, etc., which users can then subscribe to.
• RSS feed content can be viewed with software programs called feedreaders, or feed aggregators. Feed readers can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and updates made to this content) to many online properties.
• Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF (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, feedreaders, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from various sources.

This in-depth article explains 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 to your site via RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing web content. Feeds provide an easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.

Syndication allows most digital content publishing agencies and many popular online media publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics and headlines from all around the globe without actually having to send more content writers all around the world …

(News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources around the globe.)

Syndication is used to share information legitimately. Digital news publishers syndicate their stories using news feeds …

(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content)

Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.

Most news reporting agencies and major sites have an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “salt lake tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

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

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(RSS Feeds. Source: NY Times RSS)

Each of these RSS feed items allows you to access content about different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, health news, etc.)

An RSS feed list can also contain subcategories …

(Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories. Image Source: Los Angeles Times RSS)

Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

Syndicating content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s site and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …

(Content Syndication - Benefits)

While adding RSS 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 sites to use your content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Get other sites to syndicate your content … it will help to increase traffic!)

WordPress RSS Feed

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

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

1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your navigation menu …

(The feed will show 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 feeds is whether to display posts in the feed as full text, or just a summary …

(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds display)

We have created a detailed tutorial on WordPress Post excerpts here:

• How To Use WordPress Post Excerpts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view a feed’s content 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 search for their RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …

(Search for a ‘subscribe’ icon or link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

(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 Your WP Site

Let’s show you how to add content from other sites to yours.

How To Add An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar …

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

First, Find a site that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy the RSS feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy your feed URL to the clipboard)

Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• Adding WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar Section

Load your website in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed will now show on your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been inserted – e.g. footer, custom menu, 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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts

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

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins)

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

Here are a number of WordPress plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your content:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you specify.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them into categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with premium add-ons for extended functionality.

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

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer)

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

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each feed item as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

POWr RSS lets you combine and display content from various RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, phone, or computer and supports text in every language.

The premium version of this plugin contains a number of additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes)

The WP Pipes plugin 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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)

FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication options 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 combine and display content from many different sources), or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog WordPress Plugin)

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 the URL of your feed, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types WP Plugin)

By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you would like to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to displaying RSS feeds of your posts.

You can inspect these by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors display in the Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content displayed on Firefox)

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

(Comments feed items displayed on a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …

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

Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Individual 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 accessing an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:

(Single Post Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post address, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds

Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

If your website or blog displays content published under many categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each category.

All you need to do is use the format below:

(RSS feed format for post categories)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy your category URL …)

Add the word “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress post categories feed format)

Your category feed now only displays content posted in this 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 On Your Site

You can publish your own feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like the larger websites do …

(Provide Your Own Feeds Directory)

All you need to do is link an image to a feed URL and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)

To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress, refer to this tutorial:

• Inserting Tables Into Pages And Posts With WordPress

RSS – Notes

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

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

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Feed that contains your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed containing specific post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Contains the latest comments made on single post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Contains latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/03/08/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/01/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – RSS feed containing the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: RSS feed containing latest items for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Feed that includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

Remember to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place your subscribe link or button in a visible location …

(Encourage your site users to syndicate your feeds!)

Also, keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you publish great content that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add someone else’s content and get others to subscribe to your content online with 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 🙂

RSS – Resources:

• RSS Graphics – Visit FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss images”, 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/RSS – General information about RSS feeds.
• WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and reference. Visit this site for more information about using feeds in WordPress.

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 add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WordPress web site management platform please see our related posts section.

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