No matter what product or service your business provides, providing high-value information on your site or blog is important. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to include the latest information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is 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 entirely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to regularly provide your readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What You Need To Know About RSS
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that users can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news, audios, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata such as published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse any updates posted on these sites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to display news and updates from various sources.
In this article, we will show you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide online users with an easy way to keep up with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at syndication.
News reporting agencies and many influential media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows news publishing agencies and highly-visited online media publications to deliver readers the latest newsworthy items and content of interest from around the globe without having to hire more reporters and content writers all around the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. online media publications syndicate their information using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)
Most sites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most online newspapers and leading online media publications contain an RSS feed section (look for menu 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 leading online media publications include a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(A site’s directory of RSS feeds. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives readers access to information from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, editorials, etc.)
An RSS list can also include subcategories …
(Feed sections can also contain feed subcategories. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use feeds, all you have to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content, it also adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Using Feeds - Benefits)
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 sites to syndicate your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get users to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow Us, Links, or Social Share toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Subscribe, Social Share, or Link To Us toolbar section)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s RSS feed by simply 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 WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS feed …
(RSS feed content seen using Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(RSS feed content displayed with a Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many entries you want to show in your RSS page, by going to your Reading Settings section and typing the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feed items)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified section …
(Your feed will show as many recent items you have specified in the WordPress 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 articles in your feed as full text, or a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds appear)
If you need help Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you need to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for their RSS feed section …
(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add A Feed To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from another website or blog to your WordPress site.
Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you could add to your site the latest news and updates 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, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
First, find a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy the RSS feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content will now appear in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WP 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:
How To Add Feeds To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts instead of the sidebar? It sure can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
Here are some plugins you can check out that let you add RSS feeds to your posts and pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you specify.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them according to campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with additional functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of every item in your feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin allows you to combine content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, borders, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium version of this plugin contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress site 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
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. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give it a name of your choosing (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 Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies the default WordPress RSS feed to include pages in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To view these, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries displayed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed items viewed on a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the 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 is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Specific Post RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for single posts 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 creating an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Specific Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, 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, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can create individual category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WordPress category feed format)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Now, append “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category RSS feed)
The category RSS feed now only contains content published in that category …
(Category RSS 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 – Create A List Of Feeds For Your Subscribers
You can publish your own feeds page that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Set Up A Page Of Feeds For Your Subscribers)
All you need to do is link a button image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button image. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress here:
RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed types that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed displaying the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that contains individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/01/22/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/04/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feed. Make sure you place a subscribe link or button in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add content to your site and get others to subscribe to your content with 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 feed 🙂
Resources:
- Feed Images – Visit iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logo”, 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 – Learn more about RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation. Go here for more information about RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn 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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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)