No matter what product or service you provide, providing high-value information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if you provide accounting services, you may want to include useful information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, requires a lot of work and resources. You have to sift through, gather, and organize a ton of information, check your facts, write and edit 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 huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site visitors with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS Made Simple
- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- When users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the site and keep subscribers automatically updated.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news headlines, video playlists, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
- You can view an RSS feed using a software-based tool called a feed reader, or feed aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content to online properties.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from multiple sites.
In this detailed article, we show you how 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 and blogs to your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful and legitimate way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for online users to keep up with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Online newspapers and influential media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies and popular online publications to deliver readers the most recent news and newsworthy stories from all over the globe without having to hire and send additional reporters everywhere in the world …
(Media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content with other sites. Online newspapers syndicate their content using news feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate stories using news feeds)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate new web traffic.
Major content sites have an RSS feed section (look for navigation links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “daily telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites will have a feed section. Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Image: NY Times RSS)
These feeds allow readers to access content from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategories …
(Feed sections can also include feed subcategories. Image: LA Times)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s content additional exposure online, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website 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 you also want other websites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed on your sidebar or footer, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(You can access your WordPress RSS feed from the Entries RSS menu)
2) You can also find built-in links and buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Follow, or Links toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Stay In Touch, Link To Us, or Share toolbar)
4) You can also view your feed by 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 website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS …
(RSS feed items displayed using Firefox)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS entries displayed on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many items you want displayed in your RSS section in the Reading Settings section. Select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
The feed page will show the number of items you have specified section …
(The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in the WP 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 your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content appears)
To learn more about using excerpts in WordPress Posts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content.
How To Add Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites or blogs to yours.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is 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 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 RSS content to the WordPress sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
copy the RSS feed from a website containing content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(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 Area – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content will now show in 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:
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post? It sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins below are useful if you want to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds according to campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is an advanced, feature-rich importer that lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in your feed as a separate 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 a number of different content using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version of this plugin contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, 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 – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication for WordPress.
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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Includes Pages lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
You can inspect your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar menu …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items seen with a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed entries seen using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. 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 WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Single Posts
Being able to use 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 accessing an RSS feed for individual post items is shown below:
(Individual Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post URI, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(Feed format for post categories)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category RSS feed)
Your RSS feed now only includes content published in that category …
(Category 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 – Set Up Your Own List Of Feeds
You can publish a feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them …
(Create An RSS Feeds List)
Link a button image to your category (or specific post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
We have written a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure various feed formats that do not require messing with code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feed formats you can use and how to structure the feeds …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that contains your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments posted on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed containing the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/06/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed containing the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed containing latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to let your site visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only subscribe to your content if you publish great information that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get other users to share your content using RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Feed Graphics – Visit FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – Official WordPress documentation 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 display content from other websites and blogs on your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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