No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if you provide travel-related services, you may want to provide users with the latest information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it takes an enormous amount of effort and resources. You have to do a lot of information sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, 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 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 simpler way to keep your users up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Mean?
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that their site readers 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, videos, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata such as date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom 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 multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from a number of sites.
This detailed guide explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide web users with a simple way to keep up with the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at how content syndication is used.
Online media publications use content syndication to publish news from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows digital news publishers to deliver readers the most recent news and newsworthy content from around the globe without having to send more news reporting departments everywhere around the world …
(Digital agencies use content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. online media publications syndicate content using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share content with other news publications)
Most websites actually want you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Most news reporting agencies and major sites will include an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “la times rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most news reporting agencies and major sites include a feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)
These feed items let you access content from different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
A feed list can also contain further feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: Los Angeles Times)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use feeds is copy the URLs and paste these 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 or blog on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s business, it also adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(The Benefits Of Content Syndication)
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 there are benefits in getting other websites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, this gives your business the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Try to get visitors to syndicate content using your feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
WordPress Feed – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(The feed page will show as many recent items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display your posts as full text, or just a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content appears)
To learn more about Post excerpts, see this tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of a feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can 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 a ‘subscribe’ link or icon using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to your WordPress site.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you could display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website containing content that you would like to add to your site …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, go to your Widgets panel and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should display on your sidebar …
(RSS Feed Content Added To Sidebar)
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 Feed Content To Your Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of your sidebar?
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside the Plugins screen for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a few WordPress plugins that allow you to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each 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 automatically combine content from various RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed 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 all languages.
The premium edition of POWr contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create 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 LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile Atom/RSS syndication options for WordPress site content.
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 bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog Plugin)
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
(RSS Includes Pages)
Install RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To view these, 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 Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items seen using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries viewed on a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader 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 site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Item Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for a specific post item 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 displaying an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post address, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your site publishes content under a number of categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each different category.
Just use the format below:
(Feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories RSS feed format)
Your feed will now only contain content specific to that 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 – Create An RSS Feeds Directory
You can create an RSS feeds page that allows your readers to subscribe to specific categories …
(Provide Your Own List Of Feeds On Your Site)
You can also link an image to category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS image. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts, refer to this tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations that do not require editing code. For example, the table below shows some of the kinds of custom feed types you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that contains the latest comments left on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that displays specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that contains the latest comments made on a post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/01/16/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed that includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe links somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add someone else’s content and get other users to subscribe to your content online using 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 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- Feed Icons – Visit online resource sites like www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: Feeds – WordPress documentation and reference site. Go here for additional information 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 display content from other websites and blogs on your site via RSS.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please see other posts we have published on this site.
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com