No matter what service or product you sell or what industry your business is a part of, it’s vitally important to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide travel-related services, you may want to publish information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from embassies, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, takes a lot of effort and resources. You have to do a ton of data gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually 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.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site visitors with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Basic Definition
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to 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.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, audios, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
- RSS feed content can be viewed with software called RSS readers, or feed aggregators. Feed readers are used to access content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content online.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from multiple sources.
In this in-depth guide, we will show you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other websites and blogs to your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way to share web content. Feeds provide web users with a way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Online media publications use content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows many online newspapers and leading online publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news items and newsworthy stories from all over the planet without actually having to hire and set up additional news reporters and content writers in every location around the world …
(Digital content publishing agencies rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. online media publications syndicate information using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most websites actually want you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web traffic.
Leading news reporting agencies will have an RSS feed section (look for navigation links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier mail rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most content publishers and major content sites contain an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: NY Times)
These RSS feeds give you access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, editorials, etc.)
A feed list can also contain feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use the feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Using Feeds)
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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to use your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(It’s worth trying to get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar menu …
(The feed will show as many recent items you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display posts in your feed as full text, or as a summary …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content displays)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need to do 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 reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon 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 feed URL to your 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 content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
Adding Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other website’s RSS feeds to your site.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook comments, 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 the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
First, Find a site that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy its RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Area – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear on the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WordPress 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 Feed Content To Your Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to a post instead of the sidebar?
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins listed below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (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 allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to 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 with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium version contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of 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 help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress is a flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that bring together posts from various different sources), or display all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (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 – WordPress Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you would like 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:
Using WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
You can view your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image 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 website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Single Item Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for a single 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 individual posts is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post address, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website or blog publishes content under many categories, WordPress allows you to offer subscribers a separate RSS feed for each of your categories.
Just use the format shown below:
(Feed format for post categories)
Copy the category link address …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories feed format)
The category RSS feed will now only display content posted under 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 A List Of Feeds On Your Site
You can publish a directory of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe to specific categories, just like large websites …
(Provide A Directory Of RSS Feeds)
All you need to do is link an icon like the one shown below to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress, refer to this tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed formats without messing with code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feeds you can create …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments posted on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that contains the latest comments made on a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed that contains latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/03/24/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/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: Feed displaying the latest post entries 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 feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe button image in a visible location …
(Encourage your site users to subscribe to your feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get others to subscribe to your content using 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 feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- RSS Images – Visit a site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, guiding developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – WordPress software documentation and information site. Go here for more information about using WordPress feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.
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