No matter what service or product you sell or what industry your business is a part of, it’s important to provide high-quality information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, and engages your visitors. For example, if your business provides travel services, it’s a good idea to publish useful information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from consulates, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, involves a huge amount of work and resources. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a ton of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is 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 entirely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to provide your readers with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What You Need To Know About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for content updates. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the site and keep feed subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog posts, news, audios, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata such as date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then keep up with any updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from various other websites.
This detailed guide shows you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate way to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a way for online users to receive the latest information posted on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Media publications use content syndication to publish news and stories from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies and popular media publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news items from all over the planet without having to hire and set up more content writers everywhere around the world …
(Most news reporting agencies use syndication to publish content from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information. News reporting agencies syndicate their stories using feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)
Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Many online newspapers and major sites contain an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “huffington post rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news reporting agencies and major online media publications contain a feed section. Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of different RSS feeds …
(RSS feeds list. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives you access to information from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, sports news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: Los Angeles Times RSS)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use the feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding 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 sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Consider trying to get other online users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
WordPress RSS – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your 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 get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your navigation menu …
(Your feed page will show the number of posts as you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed appears)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for an RSS feed link …
(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 to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other website’s RSS feeds to your site.
Adding 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 updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as 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 area …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
copy the feed URL from a website containing content that you want to add to your site …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, go to your Widgets panel and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content will now appear in your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed) …
(RSS Feed Added To 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 Content From RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to a post? Yes, you can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are a few plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your pages and posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that lets you autoblog 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 Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin 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 Plugin)
POWr RSS Feed allows you to automatically combine content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of POWr contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, 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 lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WP Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress-generated 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that display posts from many different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, 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 the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin)
The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin modifies RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To view this, locate the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed items displayed on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL 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 WP installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Specific Post Items
Being able to use an RSS feed for a single post item 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 displaying an RSS feed for a single post item is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
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 post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content about certain topics. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can create individual category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(WordPress post categories feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for post categories)
The RSS feed will now only contain content posted for this 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 Your Own Page Of Feeds For Your Subscribers
You can provide a page of RSS feeds on your site that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Set Up A Directory Of Feeds)
Link an image to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress posts, go here:
RSS Feeds – Notes
You can customize your RSS in various different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed types that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can display …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed that includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/01/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Feed displaying latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/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: Displays 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 RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe button in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you publish great information. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get other sites to share your content with 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 Feed Images – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS.
- WordPress.org – WordPress documentation and information site. Go here for more information about WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now 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 WordPress CMS platform please click on links to visit other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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