No matter what service or product you provide or what industry your business belongs to, providing quality information to your site users is essential. For example, if you provide travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to publish useful information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from consulates, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it involves an enormous amount of effort and resources. You have to sift through, research, and organize a ton of data, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit 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 beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much easier way to provide your site readers 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
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- When users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news, audio lists, etc., which users can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (XML = Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with other metadata like published date, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then keep up with any updates posted on these websites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. 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 applications also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates from different sources.
This detailed 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 someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at the concept of content syndication.
Most news reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.
Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics as well as newsworthy content from all over the globe without actually having to hire additional reporting agencies in every location in the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate their information using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate content using feeds)
Most sites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Major sites provide links to a 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”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major sites have a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these feed items lets readers access content from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, science news, etc.)
A feed directory can also include further subcategories …
(Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. To use feeds, all you need to do 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.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s business, it also adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business 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 sites to use YOUR content.
When other websites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Try to get other website owners to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
WordPress RSS Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users 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 displays the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed page will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display your posts as full text, or a summary …
(Settings – 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 feed content displays)
To learn more about using excerpts in WordPress Posts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for their RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed section. 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 the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other sites to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you can easily display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their 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 RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Let’s 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 …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content can now be seen in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed – e.g. custom menu, footer, 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:
Adding Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of the sidebar? Yes, you can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS feed, 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.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with extended functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is a popular, feature-rich importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin 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)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium version contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
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 functionality 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 Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options for WordPress-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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
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. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available 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: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed items as seen with a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 site has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Single Post RSS Feeds
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 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 a single post is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, 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 web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your site displays content published under a number of categories, you can provide a separate RSS feed for each post category.
Just use the format shown below:
(WP category feed format)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category RSS feed)
Your feed now only contains content posted in that particular 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 Page
You can provide your own directory of RSS feeds for your subscribers that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Create Your Own RSS Feeds Page)
You can link an icon to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress posts and pages here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations without editing code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use on your site and how to create your feeds …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on single post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/02/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains 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 feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links somewhere visible …
(Remember to make your feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality content that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get online users to share your content with RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Graphics – Visit sites like Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logo”, etc.) for sites that contain 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 the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and reference. Go here for additional information about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know 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.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using the WP website management platform please click on links to visit 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)