No matter what product or service you provide, providing quality information on your site or blog is important. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s not a bad idea to publish information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from consular offices, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton 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 kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to regularly provide your users with expert, up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The simplest way to provide your site visitors with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Is It?

• RSS, which, according to some experts is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• Once a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
• Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog post items, news headlines, video lists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML (XML = Extensible Markup Language) document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata such as date of publishing, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these sites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their content automatically.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 receive news and updates sourced from many sites.

In this guide, we explain where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display content from other websites on your site via RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate method used to share web content. Feeds provide a simple way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s take a look at syndication.

Global media and online newspapers use syndication to publish content from news agencies around the world.

Content syndication allows leading digital agencies to deliver readers global stories and the latest news items from all over the planet without having to hire and set up more content writers in every location around the world …

(Digital content publishing agencies rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate news stories using feeds …

(News reporting agencies syndicate information using news feeds)

Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web visitors.

Many news reporting agencies include an RSS feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “texas tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most online newspapers and major online media publications contain an RSS feed section. Source: SMH RSS )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …

(RSS feeds list. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

These feeds let readers source information from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, sports news, editorials, etc.)

Feed sections can also include feed subcategories …

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

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

Syndicating Content – Benefits

Syndicating someone else’s content on your site has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s business and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create this content …

(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)

While adding an RSS 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 you also want other websites to use YOUR content.

When other websites syndicate content using your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …

(Get users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase traffic!)

About Your WordPress RSS Feed

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

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display as part of your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(WordPress Meta widget)

2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.

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

(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On many websites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Subscribe, or Link To Us section …

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

4) You can also view your 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 site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS page …

(RSS content displayed on Firefox web browser)

Note that your feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …

(Feed items displayed using a Google Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many items you want to display in your RSS Feed page in the Reading Settings section. Type the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication items)

Your feed page will show the number of posts as you have specified in your Reading Settings section …

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

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

Another 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 just a summary …

(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …

(Post excerpts can affect how a feed displays)

For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about Post excerpts, go here:

• How To Use Post Excerpts In WordPress

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, to view the content of a feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s see how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and look for a ‘subscribe’ icon or link …

(Look for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into a feed reader …

(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)

Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds.

How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Site

Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another website to your site.

Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing 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 the WordPress sidebar …

(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu)

copy the RSS feed from a website that publishes content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

Next, go to your Widgets panel and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)

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

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar

Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display in your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed) …

(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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding RSS Feed Content To Your Posts

Can content from an RSS feed be added to posts? It sure can!

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.

Here are some autoblogging tools that allow you to create posts using RSS feeds:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico)

WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to campaigns and categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)

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

The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each item in the feed as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)

POWr RSS Feed combines and displays content from various RSS feeds.

The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in any language.

The premium edition of POWr 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:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you 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 LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site 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 of your online activity into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev – 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, give the feed a name of your choosing (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)

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies your RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.

You can see these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …

(WordPress Comments Feed)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content as seen using Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …

(RSS comments feed entries seen using a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader 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 WP installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Specific Post RSS Feeds

Being able to display an RSS feed for a specific post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS aggregator sites, 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:

(Individual Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the web address 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 associated with that post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from a specific post category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

With WordPress, you can easily create individual category feeds.

Just use the format below:

(WP category feed format)

Copy the category link address …

(Copy your category URL …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for category)

Your feed now only contains content published in this 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 – Publish Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds For Subscribers

You can publish an RSS feeds list that allows your readers to subscribe to specific content, just like large authoritative sites …

(Provide Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)

All you need to do is link an icon to your category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …

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

If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress posts and pages, go here:

• How To Insert Tables Into WordPress Pages And Posts Easily Without Programming Skills

WordPress RSS – Additional Notes

Feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows different feed configurations that do not require touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can display …

(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)

Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed 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 blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed for a specific post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Displays 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 items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/02/12/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/01/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Feed that displays the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/

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

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

One more thing …

It’s a good idea to promote your RSS feeds. Place a subscribe links in a visible location …

(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide great content that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Add great content to your site and get visitors to subscribe to your content using 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 🙂

RSS – Additional Resources:

• RSS Feed Images – Visit an online resource site like www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphics.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and reference repository. Go here to learn more about RSS feeds in WordPress.

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 content from other websites to your site via RSS feeds.

Hopefully, this article 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 learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.

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