No matter what product or service your business sells, it’s important to provide high-value information to your site users. For example, if your business provides health-related services, you may want to provide users with useful information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (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 not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your users with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Basic Definition
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- When users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, video lists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds with programs called RSS readers, or feed aggregators. Feed readers can be used to find content on all different kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and updates made to this content) to various online properties.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from different websites.
This article explains where your RSS feed is located, 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.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) method used to share web content. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.
Media publications use syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows content publishing agencies and many popular online media publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and newsworthy content from all over the globe without having to employ and post more reporters to every location in the world …
(News reporting agencies and influential media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. online media publications syndicate their content using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most news reporting agencies include an RSS feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “times of india rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many content publishers and major online media publications will have a feed section. Source: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content areas of the site …
(RSS directory. Image Source: New York Times RSS)
Each of these feeds allows you to access content from different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Content Syndication 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 worth keeping in mind that you also want other websites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Consider trying to get visitors to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
About Your WordPress RSS
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors 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 URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on the theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Share, or Follow Us fixed, floating, or slide-out toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Follow Us, or Links floating, slide-out, or fixed toolbar)
4) You can also view your RSS feed by typing your site’s URL into a 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS page …
(RSS feed items as seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Feed items seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many posts you would like to show in your Feeds page in the Reading Settings section. Type the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items setting)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section …
(Your 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
Another setting in your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds display)
We have created a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of a 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.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website whose content you want to subscribe to and search for an RSS feed button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed icon. Image source: 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 URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
First, go to a site containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy its RSS feed URL …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on your 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 A Feed To Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are a number of autoblogging tools that allow you to create new with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
POWr RSS Feed allows you to combine content from various RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium version contains many 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 lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and 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 podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible syndication plugin for WordPress.
As stated in the FeedWordPress website …
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 display all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
RSS Includes Pages lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.
To see these, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items displayed on a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed using a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed 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 website is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Individual Posts
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 using an RSS feed for a single post is shown below:
(Individual Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI 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 URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from a particular category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site contains content published under many categories, WordPress allows you to offer readers a separate RSS feed for each post category.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Copy the category link address …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
The RSS feed now only displays content published in that category …
(Category 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 A Feeds Directory
You can set up a feeds page that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Set Up A Directory Of RSS Feeds)
You can link an icon to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Image: 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, see this tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize your RSS in several ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of feeds you can use …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed displaying latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/10/14/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Feed displaying the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/04/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains 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 feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide useful content. In other words, provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add content to your site and get other sites to share your content 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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Icons – Visit online resource sites like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about using RSS.
- WordPress.org – WordPress documentation and information repository. Visit this site to learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other sites to your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please see other great content we have published on this site.
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