No matter what what industry you are a part of, you need to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide insurance services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with useful information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance tips, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it involves a huge amount of time and resources. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton of information, check your facts, write and edit 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.
Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your site readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – A Basic Overview
- RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- When a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for content updates. Instead, their web browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers automatically updated.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog posts, news headlines, video lists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds with software-based tools called feedreaders, or feed aggregators. Aggregators can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content to many online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to display news and updates from multiple sources.
In this in-depth guide, you are going to learn how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful way to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a way for web users to receive the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Online newspapers use syndication to publish content from content sources around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest stories and newsworthy content from all over the globe without having to set up more news staff and news writers everywhere in the world …
(Most news publishers use syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate information using news feeds)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Many digital news publishing agencies and major sites will have 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”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading online newspapers contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS feeds section. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feed items allow readers to source content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS feed list can also contain subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Content Syndication 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 without having to create it, it’s worth keeping in mind that you also want other websites to use YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Look for ways to get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
WordPress Feed – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta widget)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Stay In Touch, or Link To Us toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Subscribe, or Share section)
4) You can also view your RSS feed by simply 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 WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your site’s feed …
(RSS entries seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS items viewed on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many items you would like to show in your Feeds page, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
The feed section will show the number of items you have specified 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
The other setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feeds will display)
To learn more about Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you have to do 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, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for a ‘subscribe’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could easily display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can use 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 content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, go to a website containing content that you would like to add to your site and copy its RSS feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed) …
(RSS Feed 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:
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are some auto blogging tools that let you create new with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is a popular, feature-filled importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress-generated 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine content from multiple sources), or display all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog 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, 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 – WordPress Plugin)
Use 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:
Using RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can view this by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen with a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. 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 has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Specific Items
Being able to create an RSS feed for a single post 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 making an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from a particular post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your site displays content published under different categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each category.
Just use the format below:
(WP post categories RSS feed format)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed will now only contain content posted under this category …
(Category RSS 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 – Set Up A Directory Of RSS Feeds For Visitors
You can publish an RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories …
(Publish A Feeds List)
Link an RSS image to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on creating tables in WordPress pages and posts, go here:
RSS – Notes
You can customize your feeds in a number of ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several feed configurations without code editing skills. For example, here are some of the kinds of feeds you can display …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that contains the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/12/28/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your feed. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only syndicate your content if you provide great information that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get other sites to subscribe to your content using WordPress and 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 🙂
Resources:
- Download RSS Graphics – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: Feeds – WordPress software documentation site. Go here to learn more about WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress please see our related posts section.
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