No matter what service or product you sell, providing high-value information to your blog readers is important. For example, if your business provides accounting or financial planning services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data gathering, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, content writing and editing (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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Simple Overview
- RSS is short for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, video lists, etc., which any user can choose to subscribe to.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds with a software called an RSS reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders are used to access content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content to various online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and 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 applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this detailed guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way to share web content. Feeds provide a simple and easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Global media publications use syndication to publish content from news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows many online newspapers and many popular media publications to deliver readers stories from all over the planet without having to post additional news reporting and content writing departments to every location around the world …
(Many digital agencies rely on syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Online newspapers syndicate news stories using news feeds …
(Digital news publishing agencies syndicate content using news feeds)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Major content sites contain a feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “nz herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news reporting agencies and major sites have a feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS directory. Source: nytimes.com)
These RSS feed items let readers access information from different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, travel news, health news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further feed subdirectories …
(Feed sections can also contain feed subcategories. Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content - Benefits)
While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s worth keeping in mind that you also want other sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
Your WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …
(The feed page 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 the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts in the feed as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds will display)
If you need help 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 a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon or link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed button. 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 feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other sites to your WordPress site.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you could easily 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 easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …
(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
First, find a website that publishes content that you want to add to your sidebar and copy the RSS feed to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now appear in your sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Content 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:
Adding RSS Feed Content To WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to posts instead of your sidebar? It sure can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are a number of plugins that allow you to add RSS feeds to your pages and posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
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 arrange feeds according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin that offers additional functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, 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 WP Plugin)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin lets you combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom backgrounds, fonts, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of POWr 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 lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export 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 is a versatile Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress-generated content.
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 display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, 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 in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply 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
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
Install 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:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.
You can view this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries as seen on Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Comments feed items viewed using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
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 site has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Post Item RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post 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 accessing an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Copy the category URL to your clipboard …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
The 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 A Page Of RSS Feeds For Subscribers
You can provide a directory of feeds for visitors that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Publish Your Own Page Of Feeds For Your Subscribers)
You can link an image to category (or specific post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a new page …
(RSS graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress posts, go here:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize your feeds in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed formats without messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can use …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that displays your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments left on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that displays an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/11/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed that contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your users know that they can subscribe to your feed. Make sure you place a subscribe buttons in a visible location …
(Remember to promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content to your site and get others to syndicate your content using RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Resources:
- RSS Feed Icons – Visit FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS icon”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS images.
- 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 feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation repository. Go here to learn more about 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 add content from other sites to your site via their RSS feed.
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 learn more about the benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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