No matter what what industry you are a part of, it’s important to provide high-quality information to your site readers. For example, if you provide medical services, it’s a good idea to provide users with useful information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it takes a huge amount of effort and resources. You have to do a lot of data gathering, researching and organizing, checking sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually 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 completely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS Made Simple
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- When users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, music playlists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
- RSS feeds can be read with a software program called an RSS reader, or aggregator. Aggregators can be used to access content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and updates made to the content) to other sites.
- Feeds can be made available in different types 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 that feeds are compatible with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from several different sources.
This in-depth guide shows you 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 on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
News reporting agencies and many leading online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish stories from news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows most leading digital agencies to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and newsworthy content from around the globe without actually having to send more news reporters and writers everywhere around the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. Online newspapers syndicate news stories using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by digital news publishing agencies to share content with other news publications)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Leading digital publishing agencies provide links to a feed section (look for links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, 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.) …
(Most online newspapers and major content sites will contain a feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …
(A website’s directory of RSS feeds. Image Source: New York Times)
Each of these RSS feeds allows you to access information from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use the feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Syndicating someone else’s content on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)
While adding feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Try to get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in your navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(You can access your WordPress RSS feed in the Entries RSS menu)
2) You can also find links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Keep In Touch, Social Share, or Link To Us section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Follow, Links, or Social Share toolbar)
4) You can also view your feed by typing your site’s URL into a web browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WP installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your site’s feed …
(RSS items seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS feed content seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many entries you want to display in your Feeds section, by going to your Reading Settings section and selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in your Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in your 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 feeds is whether to display posts 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 your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feeds display)
We have created a detailed tutorial on 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 to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can translate 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 link …
(Search for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content for humans.
Adding A Feed To WordPress
In the example below, we’ll add content sourced from another website or blog to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding 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 sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Go to a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy its feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now show in your sidebar …
(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 Feeds To Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts? You sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are a few autoblogging plugins that let you automatically create posts using RSS feeds and imported content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WP Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging 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 categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers additional functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension is a feature-rich importer that lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, borders, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to 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 Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication 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 site (sites that bring together posts from many different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog WP 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 your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts.
You can inspect these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed using a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries viewed with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Post Item RSS Feeds
Being able to access an RSS feed for a specific 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 displaying an RSS feed for a single post item is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using 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.
If your site displays content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily create a separate feed for each category.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(Feed format for category)
Copy the category link address …
(Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …)
Now, add “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
The feed will now only include content published under this 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 Your Own Feeds Page
You can set up a page of feeds that allows readers to subscribe only to specific content, just like large websites …
(Provide Your Own List Of RSS Feeds For Your Visitors)
All you need to do is link a button image to each feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS image. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress posts and pages, go here:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations without touching code. Here are some examples of custom feed types you can use …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Contains the latest comments posted on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/11/18/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed that contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/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: Includes the latest items 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. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button or link somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if your information is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content from other sites and get others to syndicate 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 🙂
RSS – Resources:
- RSS Graphics – Visit sites like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – WordPress documentation and information. Go here for additional information about using feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other sites to your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using the WP website publishing platform please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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