No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if your business provides insurance-related services, you may want to provide users with the latest information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance tips, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a lot of information, 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 completely beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Is It?

• RSS is short for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that subscribers can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, video lists, etc., which any user can choose to subscribe to.
• You can view the content of RSS feeds with software-based tools called feedreaders, or feed aggregators. Feed readers can be used to access content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content to online properties.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. 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 machines and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from multiple sources.

This comprehensive guide shows you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other websites and blogs to your site using RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a really powerful way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to receive the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Online newspapers and many popular media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from content sources all around the world.

Content syndication allows most online newspapers to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics and headlines from all around the planet without having to post additional news writers to every place around the world …

(Global media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Content publishing agencies syndicate their information using news feeds …

(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)

Most websites actually want you to syndicate their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Most leading online media publications 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”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Major content sites have a feed section. Image: smh.com.au )

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

(RSS feeds section. Image: nytimes.com)

These feed items give readers access to information about different areas of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)

An RSS directory can also include further feed subcategories …

(An RSS list can also include feed subdirectories. Source: latimes.com feeds)

Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use feeds, all you have to do is copy the URLs and paste these into software that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Content Syndication

Adding someone else’s content to your site 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 …

(The Benefits Of Using RSS Feeds)

While adding RSS 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 websites to syndicate your content.

When other websites syndicate content using your feed, you have the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …

(Get other sites to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress RSS – Overview

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:

1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on your sidebar or footer …

(The 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

Another setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or as a summary …

(WordPress Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how a feed will appear)

To learn more about Post excerpts, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• WordPress Post Excerpts A Guide For WordPress Beginners

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s see how this works.

First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and search for their RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

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

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

Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into readable content for humans.

How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Site

Let’s show you how to add content from another site to yours.

Adding RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you can display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …

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

copy the feed URL from a website containing content that you want to display on your site …

(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)

Next, go to your Widgets area and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(WordPress RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• Adding Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar

Refresh your browser. The content can now be seen on your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed) …

(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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding A Feed To WordPress Posts

Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!

You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside the ’Add Plugins’ section for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.

(’Add Plugins’ section)

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

The plugins below are useful if you would like 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)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you select.

You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin

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 add-ons.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin)

RSS Post Importer allows you to syndicate, import, curate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.

RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)

POWr RSS lets you automatically combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.

This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.

The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site-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.

You can use this plugin to create aggregator sites, or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog)

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 the URL of your feed, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog Plugin

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)

By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types WordPress Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users.

You can inspect these by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …

(WordPress Comments Feed)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed items as seen on Firefox web browser)

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

(Comments feed entries seen on Google Chrome)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …

(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader 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 site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Individual Posts

Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post item 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 specific posts is shown below:

(Single Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post RSS Feed)

Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not the content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

WordPress allows you to create category feeds.

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

(Format for WP category RSS feed)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy the category URL …)

Now, append the word “feed” to the end of it …

(Use this format for WP post categories RSS feed)

Your feed now only displays content specific to that particular category …

(Category 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 – Set Up An RSS Feeds Directory

You can provide a feeds list that allows readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger websites do …

(Publish An RSS Feeds Directory)

Link an image to each feed and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a new page …

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

For a detailed tutorial on inserting tables into WordPress posts, go here:

• How To Insert Tables Into Posts And Pages With WordPress

WordPress RSS – Notes

You can customize your feeds in several ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations without touching code. Here are some examples of feed types you can use …

(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)

Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the diagram above:

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

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that contains the latest comments posted on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed containing single posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Contains the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/12/26/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Displays the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/06/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Contains latest items for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Contains 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 somewhere visible …

(Encourage your site users to subscribe to your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you publish great information. In other words, provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add someone else’s content and get online users to syndicate your content using 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 🙂

RSS Resources:

• Feed Buttons – Visit an online resource site like FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using the WordPress CMS platform please see our related posts section.

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