No matter what service or product you provide or what industry your business belongs to, providing high-value information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if your business provides insurance services, it’s a good idea to publish useful information from government departments, such as news and updates on statistical research, insurance tips, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, takes a lot of work and resources. You have to sort through, research, and organize a lot of data, check your facts, 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 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 much easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Stand For?
- RSS, which, according to some stands for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, audio playlists, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- You can view an RSS feed with a program called a feed reader, or feed aggregator. Feedreaders are used to access content on all different kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and any updates made to the content) to many online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this guide, you are going to learn where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with an easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Global media and news reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish content from news sources around the world.
Syndication allows most digital content agencies to deliver readers interesting stories and the latest news headlines from all around the globe without actually having to send additional staff and content writers all around the world …
(Most news reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. Global media publications syndicate their news stories using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows great information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content sites have an RSS 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”, “salt lake tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites provide links to a feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS directory. Image Source: New York Times RSS)
These RSS feeds let readers source different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is to copy the URL and paste it into an application that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s website additional exposure online and helps you by freeing you up from having to create this 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 a great idea to try and get other websites to use YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Consider trying to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
About Your WordPress RSS
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your theme, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer menu …
(The feed will display the number of items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP 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 affect how your feed content appears)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, see this 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 and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for an RSS feed section …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ link. Image source: http://www.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 your feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.
How To Add An RSS Feed To WordPress Sites
In the example below, we’ll add content from other sites to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can add to your site the latest news and updates 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 navigation area)
copy the RSS feed from a site that publishes content that you want to display on your sidebar …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should 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 Content From RSS Feeds To Your Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ search results – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some WordPress plugins that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in your feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS Feed allows you to automatically combine content from various sources using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any computer, tablet, or phone and supports text in all languages.
The premium version contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options for WordPress site-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 bring together content from many different sources), or bring together all your online activity into a Lifestream.
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, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)
Install a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can access the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed with a Google Chrome web 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 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Individual Post Items
Being able to select 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 displaying an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post 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 post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain topics. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(Feed format for category)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Now, append “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories feed format)
The category feed now only includes content posted for this category …
(Category 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 – Provide Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can publish your own RSS feeds list that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them …
(Create A Feeds Directory)
Link a button icon like the one shown below to category feeds and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS icon. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress content, go here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed formats that do not require editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feed types you can display …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed 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 – Feed that contains the latest comments left on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed displaying the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/04/26/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Feed that displays the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed that displays the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
It’s a good idea to promote your RSS feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ buttons somewhere visible …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality content that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add great content to your site and get visitors to share 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:
- Feed Images – Visit a site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation and information site. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display content from other sites on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts we have published on this site.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)