No matter what service or product you sell, it’s important to provide quality information to your site visitors. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s a good idea to publish information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from consular offices, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it requires a lot of work and resources. You have to sort through, research, 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 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 beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your users with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to 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 new blog post items, news, video playlists, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- RSS feeds can be viewed with a software program called an RSS reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and updates made to this content) to online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feedreaders. 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 compatibility with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from various sites.
This guide explains where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites and blogs on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate method used for sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for online users to receive the latest information posted on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Media publications rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest news and interesting content from around the globe without having to hire additional reporters in every location in the world …
(Media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. News reporting agencies syndicate their information using feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate their information using feeds)
Most sites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives 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.
Most content agencies and major online media publications have an RSS feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “express tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading content publishing agencies contain a feed section. Image: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feed items allow readers to source information from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: LA Times)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
RSS Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s site and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Using RSS Feeds)
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 you also want other websites to syndicate your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get other websites to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(The feed will display as many recent items you have specified in the 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 in a feed as full text, or as a summary …
(WP Settings – 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 your feed content will appear)
If you need help using Post excerpts in WordPress, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for their RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add An RSS Feed To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content from another site to yours.
How To Add A Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
First, Find a website containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy the RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should display in the sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Added To WP 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:
How To Add Feeds To WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to a post instead of your sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
Here are a number of autoblogging plugins for WordPress that allow you to create posts using feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico 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 them into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you import RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer can be used to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) 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:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium version of POWr 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 lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WP Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication options 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that display posts from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog 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 your feed URL, give it 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 and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
Install a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you want to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available.
You can access these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed on Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Comments feed items viewed with a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Single Post Items
Being able to create an RSS feed for a specific post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for displaying an RSS feed for single post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the URL 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 the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog contains content published under many categories, WordPress allows you to easily provide a separate feed for each different category.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories RSS feed format)
The feed will now only include content posted in that 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 – Set Up An RSS Feeds Directory
You can set up your own list of feeds for your site visitors that allows readers to subscribe only to specific categories …
(Set Up An RSS Feeds Page)
You can also link an image like the one shown below to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress content, refer to this tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed formats that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of feed formats you can display …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using 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 entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that contains the latest comments left on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/02/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed that includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest items 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 RSS feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you provide great content that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content to your site and get other users to syndicate your content using WordPress and RSS!)
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:
- RSS Icons – Visit online resource sites like www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – WordPress documentation. Visit this site to learn more about RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other sites to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of issues 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 platform please see our related posts section.
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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)