No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, it’s vitally important to provide high-value information on your site or blog that educates, informs, and engages your visitors. For example, if you provide taxation services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing 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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your readers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Stand For?
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save users time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, audios, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds using programs called feed readers, or aggregators. Aggregators can be used to find content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) online.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF 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 receive news and updates sourced from different sites.
This guide explains 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 RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful method used to share web content. Feeds provide web users with a simple way to receive the latest information published on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and newsworthy stories from all around the planet without having to hire more news reporting departments everywhere around the world …
(Many content publishing agencies and influential media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content. Global media publications syndicate information using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share newsworthy content with other news publications)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate new web traffic.
Many content publishing agencies and major sites will include a feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier mail rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading online newspapers include a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feeds give you access to information from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
A feed directory can also include further feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use the feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using Feeds
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and helps you by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 a great idea to try and get other sites to use your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Try to get users to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress RSS Feed – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all 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 WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta widget – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many websites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow Us, Link To Us, or Share toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Social Share, or Follow Us toolbar section)
4) You can also view your RSS feed by 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 site has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS …
(Feed items seen using Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Feed items displayed with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you want displayed in your RSS section, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication items setting)
Your feed section will display the number of items you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will show the number of items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed appears)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using excerpts in WordPress Posts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, 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 take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for an RSS feed section …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon or link. 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 the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites or blogs to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could easily display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook updates, 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 an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website or blog containing content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, go to Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Area – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear 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:
Adding Feed Content To WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar?
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin screen for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some plugins you can check out that allow you to add RSS feeds to your posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom backgrounds, colors, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
The WP Pipes plugin is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a 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 FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that display posts from different sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev)
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 a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies the default WordPress RSS feed to include pages in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts.
To access these comments, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed on a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed entries viewed using a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the 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 site is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Single Items
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 directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for creating an RSS feed for individual post items is shown below:
(Specific Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from a particular post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your site displays content published under different categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate RSS feed for each category.
Just use the format below:
(Use this format for WP post categories feed)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category feed)
The category feed now only contains content posted under that category …
(Category 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 – Provide A Page Of RSS Feeds
You can set up your own RSS feeds list that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Create A Feeds List)
You can link an RSS image to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a new page …
(RSS icon. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress, go here:
RSS – Notes
You can customize your feeds in various different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed types without messing with code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments published on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on single post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/09/29/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed containing latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed containing the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe link or button in a visible location …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality content that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content to your site and get other users to syndicate your content online with 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- Feed Buttons – Visit a site like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation site. Visit this site to learn more 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 add content from other websites to your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using the WP CMS software please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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