No matter what service or product you sell or what industry your business belongs to, providing high-value information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides health-related services, it’s a good idea to include useful information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of information gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is 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 well beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to regularly provide your readers with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your site visitors with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Useful Information
- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that their users can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog posts, news headlines, audio playlists, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- 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, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then keep up with any updates posted on these sites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate content.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 machines, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from various different websites.
In this guide, we will show you 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 RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Digital news publishing agencies use content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the world.
Syndication allows digital news publishers to deliver readers global stories and the most recent newsworthy items from all over the globe without having to post additional staff and news writers everywhere in the world …
(Online newspapers and popular online media publications rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. Online newspapers syndicate information using feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate their stories using feeds)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Leading online newspapers have 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”, “star tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many online newspapers have an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Image: nytimes.com)
These feeds give you access to different areas of the site (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s site and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Content Syndication 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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress RSS – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(Your feed page will show the number of items you have specified in your WordPress 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 feeds is whether to display each article as full text, or a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using Post excerpts in WordPress here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and look for their RSS feed button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button. 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 what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your 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 RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add A Feed To WordPress
In the example below, we’ll add content from another website or blog to your WordPress site.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you can add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to 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 …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
First, go to a website or blog containing content that you want to display on your site and copy the feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now appear 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:
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar?
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, borders, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any computer, tablet, or phone and supports text in every language.
The premium version of POWr contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile Atom/RSS syndication options for WordPress 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that combine content from various different sources), or display all your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages)
Use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages 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 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to displaying feeds of your posts.
You can see this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed with a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed entries displayed with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Single Post Item Feeds
Being able to access an RSS feed for single post items 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 making an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Feed For Single Post)
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 made on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can easily create category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for category)
The category RSS feed will now only display content posted under that particular 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 – Set Up A List Of RSS Feeds
You can provide an RSS feeds list that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Create Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds)
You can link an icon 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 button image. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
We have written a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
You can customize RSS in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations without messing with code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown 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 – RSS feed that contains the latest comments posted on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/09/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest posts 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 last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ button image in a visible location …
(Encourage your visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add someone else’s content and get other users to syndicate 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 Resources:
- Download RSS Images – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS icons.
- 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.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – WordPress software documentation and reference repository. Visit this site to learn more about using 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 and blogs to your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit other great articles and tutorials 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)