No matter what product or service you provide or what industry your business belongs to, providing high-quality information to your blog readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide health-related services, you may want to publish information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to sort through, gather, 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 continually ensure 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 completely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your users with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that users can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, video lists, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be read with a software-based tool called a feed reader, or aggregator. Feed readers can be used to find new content published on websites and distribute this content (and updates made to the content) online.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed aggregators. 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 machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from various sources.
This comprehensive article explains where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful way of sharing content online. Feeds provide a way for online users to keep up with the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Global media and content publishing agencies use content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows most leading online newspapers to deliver readers the latest news and stories of general interest from all over the planet without actually having to hire more writers everywhere in the world …
(News reporting agencies and many leading online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most news publishers and major content sites have a feed section (look for links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites will have a feed section. Image: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These RSS feed items give readers access to different sections of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS directory can also contain subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you have to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s content additional exposure online, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)
While adding RSS feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use your content.
When other websites syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(It’s worth trying to get users to syndicate content using your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
About Your WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a standard or custom menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Access your WordPress RSS feed in the Meta section)
2) You can also find links and buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many sites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Follow Us, or Social Share section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Follow Us, Share, or Link To Us toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS page …
(Feed items seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Feed items as seen using a Google Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you would like displayed in your RSS section, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication items setting)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified section …
(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
The other setting in the WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or a summary …
(WP 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 affect how your feeds will appear)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you have to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ link or icon using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites or blogs to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you could display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS 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 …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Go to a site that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy the RSS feed to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display in your sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content 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:
Adding An RSS Feed To WordPress Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to posts instead of your sidebar? It sure can!
You can do this using plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a number of plugins that allow you to add RSS feeds to your content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that allows you to 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 additional functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to add content to your site automatically 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 curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
POWr RSS Feed allows you to combine content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all phones, computers, and tablets and supports text in any language.
The premium version of this plugin contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WP Plugin)
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 functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, 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 provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication options 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog 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 the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you would like to include pages in your WordPress 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 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users.
To view this feed, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries as seen with a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Individual Posts
Being able to use an RSS feed for individual 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 creating an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post address, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website or blog displays content published under several categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each category.
Just use the format below:
(Feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category feed)
Your feed will now only contain content posted under that 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 – Provide Your Own List Of RSS Feeds
You can set up your own list of feeds for visitors that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories …
(Create A Feeds List)
All you need to do is link an icon to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress posts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed types without messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Contains the latest comments published on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing single post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/12/23/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide useful information. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content to your site and get other users to syndicate your content online with RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Resources:
- RSS Icons – Visit an online resource site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphic elements.
- 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 feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference site. Go here for more information about using WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, 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 RSS.
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 WordPress for a business web site please see other great content we have published on this site.
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