No matter what service or product you sell, providing high-quality information to your site users is vitally important. For example, if your business provides travel services, it’s a good idea to provide users with information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it requires a lot of work and expertise. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, writing and editing content (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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to provide your readers with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your readers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, videos, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
- You can view an RSS feed using a web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software program called a feed reader, or aggregator. Aggregators are used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and any updates made to the content) online.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different aggregators. 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 that feeds are compatible with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from various websites.
This in-depth guide shows you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display content from other sites on your site using RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful and legitimate method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide online users with a simple way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at the concept of syndication.
Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish stories from news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows most news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest news items and stories of general interest from around the globe without actually having to set up additional news writers all around the world …
(Many news reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their news stories using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Many online newspapers and leading online media publications will contain a 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”, “star tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many online newspapers and major content sites provide links to an RSS feed section. Image: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds section. Source: nytimes.com)
These RSS feed items allow you to access different sections of the site (e.g. business news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS list can also contain subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use an RSS 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.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s business and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the 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 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 content, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Look for ways to get other online users to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
WordPress RSS – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget as part of your navigation menu …
(The feed 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 your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how content in feeds display)
We have created a detailed tutorial about Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is 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 show you how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or button …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button or link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the 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 the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
How To Add Feeds To WordPress Sites
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites or blogs to your site.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you could display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu)
copy the RSS feed URL from a website or blog containing content that you would like to add to your sidebar …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Added To WordPress 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 RSS Feeds To Your Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to posts instead of the sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
Here are some WordPress plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them 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 auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers additional functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension 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 WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)
With POWr RSS, you can automatically combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium plugin edition contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes 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 your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)
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 your feed URL, give it a name of your choosing (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)
Use RSS Includes Pages if you want to include pages in your 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 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
To view these comments, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items displayed using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries as seen on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Single Posts
Being able to access an RSS feed for individual post items 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 making an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content about specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can create category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the selected category link address …)
And append “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
The RSS feed will now only contain content assigned to that 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 Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds
You can set up an RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like large online publishers …
(Publish Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds)
You can also link an icon to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your 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)
We have written a detailed tutorial on adding tables to WordPress posts and pages here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows different RSS feed configurations that do not require code editing skills. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/05/24/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/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: RSS feed that displays the 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 link or button in a visible location …
(Remember to make your feeds visible your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only subscribe to your content if the information that you publish on your site is useful, educational, or highly entertaining. In other words, provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add content from other sites and get visitors to share 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 RSS feed 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Feed Graphics – Visit sites like FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation and reference repository. Go here to learn more about using WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group