No matter what service or product you provide, you need to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide accounting services, you may want to publish information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.

The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it involves a great deal of time and resources. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually 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 beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a much easier way to keep your users up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Is It?

• RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “web feed”.
• After users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the site and keep subscribers automatically updated.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, audio lists, etc., which any user can choose to subscribe to.
• You can view the content of RSS feeds with software programs called feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders can be used to access new content published on websites and syndicate this content to many online properties.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. 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 compatibility with different devices and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from various sites.

This guide explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different sites.

First, let’s take a look at content syndication.

Online media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy content from news agencies around the world.

Syndication allows most digital content publishers and many leading media publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and fresh newsworthy content from all over the globe without having to hire more news staff and news writers all around the world …

(News publishers and leading media publications rely on syndication to publish content from other news agencies all around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share information legitimately. Content publishing agencies syndicate their content using news feeds …

(Content agencies syndicate content using feeds)

Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Many online newspapers and major content sites provide links to 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”, “daily telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most digital agencies and major content sites have an RSS feed section. Source: SMH )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …

(RSS feeds section. Source: nytimes.com)

gives readers access to information from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, editorials, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)

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

The Benefits Of Content Syndication

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

(The Benefits Of Content Syndication)

While adding RSS feeds 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 syndicate YOUR content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Get other online users to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress Feed – About

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

Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed on your sidebar or footer, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)

2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.

In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On some websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Link To Us, or Keep In Touch fixed, floating, or slide-out toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Subscribe, or Share toolbar section)

4) You can also view your WordPress site’s 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your site’s feed page …

(Feed items as seen on Firefox)

Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …

(Feed entries seen using 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 selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)

The feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section …

(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in your 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 posts as full text, or just as a summary …

(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)

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

(Post excerpts affect how content in your feeds appear)

To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:

• WordPress Post Excerpts A Guide For WordPress Beginners

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s take a look at how this works.

First, go to a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon …

(Look for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.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 feedreader …

(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)

Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your subscribers.

Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site

In the example below, we are going to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.

Adding RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are 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 easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …

(Add an RSS feed to your sidebar)

First, Go to a site that publishes content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy its feed URL …

(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)

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

• How To Add Widgets To WordPress

Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should now appear on 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Posts

Can you add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar? You sure can!

You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins admin section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins)

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 a number of plugins you can check out that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you select.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico WP Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for extended functionality.

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

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed)

With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from multiple sources using RSS feeds.

The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.

The premium version of POWr contains many additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes WordPress Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress 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 sites, or display all of your online activity in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog)

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, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)

By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. You can use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages

Using WordPress RSS – 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 latest posts.

You can access these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed entries as seen using Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(Comments feed items displayed with Google Chrome)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader 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 website or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Displaying Single Item RSS Feeds

Being able to create an RSS feed for specific posts 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 making an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:

(Feed For Single 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 append “/feed” to the end of the post URL, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual post content itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds

Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

If you publish content under different categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each category.

All you have to do is use the format shown below:

(WP RSS feed format for post categories)

Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the selected category URL …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for category)

The feed now only displays content posted for this particular category …

(Category-specific 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 – Publish A Feeds Directory

You can publish your own list of feeds for subscribers that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …

(Provide An RSS Feeds Page)

Link an RSS graphic like the one shown below to category feeds and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …

(RSS button image. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

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

• Adding Tables In Pages And Posts With WordPress

RSS Feeds – Additional Notes

You can customize your feeds in several ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows various feed configurations that do not require touching code. For example, here are some of the kinds of feed formats you can create …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed that includes a post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/06/28/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/09/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Includes the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Includes latest post entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: RSS feed containing latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One last thing …

Remember to let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Place your subscribe link in a visible location …

(Encourage visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if your information is useful, informative, or highly engaging. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Add someone else’s content and get other sites to syndicate your content with 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 feed 🙂

Additional Resources:

• RSS Feed Images – Visit sites like FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logos”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS images and icons.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, guiding developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about RSS.
• WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation. Visit this site to learn more about using WordPress and RSS.

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 content from other sites to your site using RSS.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To read more about using the WordPress website management software please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.

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