No matter what product or service your business sells, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to publish useful information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from consular offices, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it involves a huge amount of work and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit 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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is an easier way to continually provide your site visitors with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your users with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Stand For?
- RSS, which, according to some stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that users can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, videos, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be read using a software called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feed readers are used to find 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 (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, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from many sites.
This in-depth 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 add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with a simple way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different sites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many digital publishers rely on content syndication to publish stories from news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows many online newspapers and many leading online publications to deliver readers global stories and up-to-the-minute news from around the planet without having to send additional news reporting agencies everywhere in the world …
(News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content with other sites. Global media publications syndicate information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content 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 can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Many online newspapers and major content sites provide links to a feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “miami herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many digital news publishing agencies and major sites include an RSS feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)
These RSS feed items let readers access content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, health news, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also include further feed subdirectories …
(Feed sections can also include feed subcategories. Image Source: LA Times RSS)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s website additional exposure online and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business 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 websites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get other websites to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
About Your WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your sidebar menu …
(The feed page will show the number of items you have specified in the 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 RSS feed is whether to display articles in the feed as full text, or as a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed displays)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and search for their RSS feed button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link. 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 what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to yours.
Adding A Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you could add to your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing content from their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook 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 the WordPress sidebar)
First, Go to a website that publishes content that you want to add to your site and copy its feed URL …
(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:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear on the sidebar …
(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 Add Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to posts? It sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
The plugins below are useful if you would like to add 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 easy to use auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin 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 – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from multiple RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of this plugin contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress 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 functionality 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:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that bring together content from various different sources), or bring together all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)
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:
WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available.
You can view this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries viewed on a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed entries seen on a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed 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 has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Individual Items
Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post item 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 displaying an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Specific Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, 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 actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website displays content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer users a separate RSS feed for each post category.
Just use the format below:
(Format for WP post categories feed)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed now only contains content specific to that category …
(Category-specific feed)
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 – Create Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds For Visitors
You can set up your own directory of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories …
(Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds For Your Site Visitors)
All you need to do is link a button icon like the one shown below to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts, go here:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of feed types you can display on your site and how to create the feeds …
(Different Feed Formats 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 – Feed that displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that includes the latest comments published on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that contains single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/07/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed that contains 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 feeds. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get others to share your content online 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 iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing the RSS specification, guiding developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and information repository. Visit this site for additional information about using 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 and blogs to your site via their RSS feed.
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 learn more about the benefits of using the WP software please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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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)