No matter what product or service you sell, providing quality information to your blog users is vitally important. For example, if your business provides insurance-related services, you may want to publish the latest information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance tips, etc.

The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it requires a lot of work and resources. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your facts, write and edit content (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 not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.

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

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your readers with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Some Basic Information About RSS

• RSS, which, according to some stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that their site readers can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog post items, news headlines, videos, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
• You can view the content of RSS feeds using web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software-based programs called feedreaders, or aggregators. Aggregators are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to other sites.
• Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feed readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from different sites.

This article shows you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on different websites.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Global media and online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.

Syndication allows digital publishing agencies and many popular online media publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics from around the globe without having to send more news writers to every location in the world …

(Media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies around the globe.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content with other sites. News reporting agencies syndicate their content using news feeds …

(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share newsworthy content with other publications)

Most sites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Many news agencies and major content sites have an RSS 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”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Many online newspapers and major sites contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH RSS )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …

(A website’s directory of RSS feeds. Source: nytimes.com)

gives readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, health news, etc.)

An RSS feed list can also include further subcategories …

(An RSS feed directory can also contain feed subcategories. Image Source: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is copy the URLs and paste these into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

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

(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)

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 websites to syndicate YOUR content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Consider trying to get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress RSS – Overview

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

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

1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a navigation menu …

(The feed page will display the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

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

(Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)

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

(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will appear)

We have written a detailed tutorial on using Post excerpts in WordPress here:

• Post Excerpts A Guide For WordPress Beginners

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

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

(Look for a ‘subscribe’ icon. Image source: 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 an online feedreader …

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

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

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WP Site

Let’s show you how to add content from another site’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to 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 RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …

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

copy the RSS feed URL from a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your site …

(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 Area – RSS Widget)

To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Sidebar

Load your website in your web browser. The content should now display on your sidebar …

(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 Content From RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Posts

Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post instead of the sidebar? Yes, it can!

You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search inside your Plugins admin section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins for WordPress)

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

Here are some WordPress plugins that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts and pages:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WP Plugin)

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

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

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico WordPress Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing 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)

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

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)

The POWr RSS Feed plugin combines and displays content from various RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.

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

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes WP Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to 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 LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, 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 – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a versatile 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 bring together all your online activity into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog 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, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog Plugin For WordPress

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin)

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available.

You can access these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …

(Comments Feed)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed entries seen on Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …

(RSS comments feed entries displayed on Google Chrome)

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

(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Individual Post Feeds

Being able to access 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 a specific post 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 RSS Feed)

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

Tip #3 – Displaying Category Feeds

Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

WordPress allows you to create category feeds.

All you have to do is use the format below:

(RSS feed format for category)

Select and copy the category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the category URL …)

Now, add “feed” to the end of it …

(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)

Your feed will now only include content assigned to this 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 – Publish An RSS Feeds Page

You can publish a feeds list that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in, just like the larger websites do …

(Provide A List Of RSS Feeds On Your Site)

You can link an icon like the one shown below to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …

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

To learn more about creating tables in WordPress, refer to this tutorial:

• Creating And Inserting Tables Into Pages And Posts In WordPress

WordPress RSS – Notes

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

WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations without editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use and how to format these feeds …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)

Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:

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

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

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

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/02/13/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/02/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/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: Includes latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

Remember to let your visitors know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your subscribe button or link somewhere visible …

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

Keep in mind that other sites will only syndicate your content if the information that you provide on your site is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add content to your site and get others to subscribe to your content online using RSS feeds!)

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 RSS feed 🙂

Additional Resources:

• RSS Icons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and reference repository. Visit this site for more information about WordPress feeds.

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

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using WordPress for a business web site please see other great content on this site.

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