No matter what product or service you sell or what industry your business is in, providing high-quality information to your site readers is important. For example, if you provide accounting services, it’s a good idea to publish the latest information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.

To create and publish this type of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a lot of data, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to provide your site visitors with great information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with the latest information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – Basic Definition And Overview

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that users can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
• Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog post items, news, audio playlists, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
• You can view the content of an RSS feed using a software program called a feed reader, or feed aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and updates made to this content) to other sites.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. 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 compatibility with different devices, feed readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from multiple sources.

In this guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing web content. Feeds provide a simple and easy way for online users to keep up with the latest information published on sites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Online media publications use syndication to publish stories from news sources around the world.

Syndication allows news reporting agencies and influential online publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics from around the planet without actually having to employ more news reporting departments in every place around the world …

(Many online newspapers rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the globe.)

Syndication is used to share content legitimately. online media publications syndicate their news stories using news feeds …

(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share newsworthy content with other publications)

Most sites 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 site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Most news reporting agencies and major sites include a 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”, “chicago tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Major content sites have an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(A list of feeds. Source: nytimes.com)

These feed items give you access to content about different areas of the site (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)

Feed sections can also include feed subcategories …

(Feed sections can also include subcategories. Source: Los Angeles Times RSS)

Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Content Syndication

Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s site and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …

(Using RSS Feeds)

While adding a feed 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 there are benefits in getting other sites to syndicate your content.

When other sites syndicate content using your feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Get other websites and blogs to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)

WordPress Feed – Overview

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their sites.

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:

1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your sidebar or footer menu …

(Your feed 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 RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just as a summary …

(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …

(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds display)

If you need help using Post excerpts in WordPress, go here:

• How To Use Excerpts In WordPress Posts

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 and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website whose content you want to syndicate and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feedreader …

(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)

Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.

Adding A Feed To WordPress Sites

Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another website to your site.

How To Add A Feed To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can display on your site the latest content 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, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area …

(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)

First, go to a website that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy the RSS feed …

(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)

Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

To learn more about using widgets, go here:

• How To Use Widgets

Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on your sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …

(RSS Feed Content Added To WP 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Posts

What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of your sidebar?

You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside the Plugins screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ search results – RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.

The plugins listed below are useful if you want to add feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)

WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them into categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for extended functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)

RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.

The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each item in your feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)

With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.

The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.

The premium version contains a number of additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes WordPress Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to 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, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress)

FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication for WordPress site 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 bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types WP Plugin)

By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. You can use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you want to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages WP Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts.

To inspect these, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …

(Comments RSS)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content as seen using a Firefox browser)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …

(Comments feed entries displayed using a Google Chrome web browser)

Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …

(Paste your comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Using RSS Feeds For Single Posts

Being able to create 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 making an RSS feed for an individual post item is shown below:

(Feed For Specific Post Item)

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 the post URL, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not the content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

With WordPress, you can easily create individual category feeds.

All you need to do is use the format shown below:

(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …)

And append “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for category)

Your feed now only includes content posted in this category …

(Category-specific 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 Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds For Your Subscribers

You can create an RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …

(Create Your Own Feeds Page)

You can also link a button to your category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a separate page …

(RSS icon. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)

To learn more about creating tables in WordPress posts and pages, go here:

• How To Easily Insert Tables Into WordPress Without Touching Code

RSS – Notes

RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows several feed configurations that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of feeds you can display …

(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)

Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – displays your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Feed containing the latest comments posted on your website or blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed for a post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Includes the latest comments made on a single post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/08/17/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Feed containing the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/01/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – RSS feed containing latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Feed containing latest items 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 let your users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link in a visible location …

(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)

Keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add someone else’s content and get others to subscribe to your content using WordPress and 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 – Additional Resources:

• Feed Buttons – Visit sites like Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and reference. Visit this site for more information 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 display content from other sites on your site via RSS.

Hopefully, now you 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 management platform please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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