No matter what service or product your business sells, providing high-value information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if your business provides travel services, you may want to include information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from consular offices, etc.

The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of information gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually kept 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 beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is one of the simplest ways to provide your readers with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What Does It Mean?

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• When users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers updated.
• Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog posts, news, audio lists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes full or summarized text along with other metadata like date of publishing, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then view updates posted on these sites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate web content automatically.
• 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 machines and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from different sites.

This detailed article explains 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 RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. Feeds provide online users with an easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on sites they are interested in.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish content from news sources all around the world.

Content syndication allows news reporting agencies and many leading online publications to deliver readers the latest news and newsworthy content from around the planet without actually having to hire and set up additional reporters in every location in the world …

(Online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the planet.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content. online media publications syndicate their content using news feeds …

(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)

Most sites actually would like you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Most leading online media publications contain a feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Many news reporting agencies and major content sites include an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of different RSS feeds …

(RSS feeds list. Image Source: New York Times)

gives you access to content from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, jobs, etc.)

An RSS directory can also contain further feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: Los Angeles Times RSS)

Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need 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.

The Benefits Of Syndicating Content

Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s site additional exposure online and helps your site 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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to syndicate YOUR content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …

(Get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)

Overview Of The WordPress Feed

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

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

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display as part of your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)

2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.

In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Stay In Touch, Links, or Social Share toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Follow Us, Link To Us, or Share toolbar)

4) You can also view your WordPress site’s feed by simply 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 website has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your site’s feed page …

(RSS items as seen on a Firefox browser)

Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(RSS feed content as seen using a Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

To specify how many posts you would like to display in your RSS section, go to your Reading Settings section and select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feed items field)

The feed will display the number of items you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section …

(Your feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

Another setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display posts as full text, or as a summary …

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

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how feeds will display)

To learn more about Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:

• A Guide To Using Post Excerpts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ link or button …

(Look for an RSS feed icon. 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 the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …

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

Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.

How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Site

In the example below, we’ll add RSS content from another site to yours.

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can 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 like news, Facebook 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 navigation menu …

(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu)

First, find a website containing content that you would like to add to your sidebar and copy the RSS 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 an RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

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

• Configuring Widgets On The Sidebar Menu

Load your website in your browser. The content from the RSS feed should now appear on the sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget – e.g. custom menu) …

(RSS Feed Content Added To 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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add Feed Content To Posts

Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post instead of a sidebar? It sure can!

You can do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins admin section for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(WordPress RSS plugins)

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

Here are a number of auto blogging plugins for WordPress that let you automatically add new using RSS feeds:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

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

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post extension is a feature-rich importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)

The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)

With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from multiple RSS feeds.

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

The premium version of POWr contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed

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 other sources.

This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes WP Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication for WordPress.

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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev

RSS Includes Pages

(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)

RSS Includes Pages modifies your RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages

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 latest posts available to online users.

You can see your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar menu …

(Comments RSS)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed items as seen using a Firefox web browser)

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

(Comments feed items as seen with a Google Chrome browser)

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

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

Tip #2 – Creating Single Post Feeds

Being able to display an RSS feed for a single 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 displaying an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:

(Individual Post RSS Feed)

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

(Single Post Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual post content itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from specific 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 URL …

(Copy the category link address …)

Append “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress category RSS feed format)

Your RSS feed will now only display content assigned to 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 – Create Your Own Feeds Page

You can set up a directory of feeds for subscribers that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories …

(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds List)

Link a button image to category feeds and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button image. Image Source: 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 pages and posts here:

• How To Add Tables To WordPress Content

RSS Feeds – Notes

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

WordPress allows you to configure several feed formats without touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feed formats you can display …

(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)

For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:

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

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments published on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Displays the latest comments made on an individual post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – RSS feed that displays the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/12/13/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/05/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Displays the latest posts 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 promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe button image in a visible location …

(Promote your feeds!)

Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only syndicate your content if your information is useful, informative, or highly engaging. In other words, provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add someone else’s content and get online users to subscribe to your content using 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 Resources:

• RSS Buttons – Visit Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphics.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
• WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation. Go here for more information about using WordPress and RSS.

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 websites and blogs on your site via their RSS feed.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.

***