No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, it’s vitally important to provide high-quality information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to publish useful information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a ton of data, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to 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 information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, video playlists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata such as date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then browse any updates posted on these websites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their web content automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from multiple sources.
In this in-depth guide, we explain 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 and blogs to your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful way to share content online. Feeds provide a way for online users to keep up with the latest information published on different websites.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news from content sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers the latest news from around the globe without having to send additional news reporters and writers everywhere in the world …
(Global media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information with other sites. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using news 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 content. Content syndication not only allows great information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Major sites include a feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most digital news agencies and major sites provide links to an RSS feed section. Image: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feeds give readers access to content from different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Using Feeds
Adding someone else’s content to your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s website additional exposure online and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)
While adding RSS feeds 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 sites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in a 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 buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On many websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Subscribe, Links, or Share toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Subscribe, or Links toolbar section)
4) You can also view your RSS feed by simply typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your website or blog is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS feed …
(Feed entries as seen using a Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS feed content seen on Chrome browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many items you would like to display in your Feeds page, go to your Reading Settings section and select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication items field)
The feed section will show the number of posts as you have specified section …
(The feed will show as many recent items you have specified in the 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 a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how content in your feeds will appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ icon or link …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ link or icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other sites to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you could easily add to your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed URL from a site that publishes content that you want to add to your site …
(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:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen in 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 RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of the sidebar? Yes, you can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some WordPress plugins that allow you to add RSS feeds to your content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of POWr contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress 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 Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication for WordPress-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, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog WP Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, 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:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can inspect these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed items seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Individual Item RSS Feeds
Being able to create an RSS feed for a specific 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 making an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(Specific Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site publishes content under a number of categories, you can provide a separate feed for each different category.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
Your category feed will now only contain content published 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 – Publish A Feeds Page
You can set up your own list of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories …
(Provide A Directory Of RSS Feeds On Your Site)
All you need to do is link a button graphic like the one shown below to each feed and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button image. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have written a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows different RSS feed configurations that do not require touching code. For example, the table below shows some of the kinds of feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown 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 – Includes the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that displays specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed displaying the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/06/28/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed containing the latest 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 items 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 site users know that they can subscribe to your feed. Make sure you place a subscribe links in a visible location …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other sites will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide useful information that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content from other sites and get other sites to share your content using RSS feeds!)
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 🙂
Resources:
- RSS Feed Graphics – Visit a site like Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and broadening public understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about RSS.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation and information. Visit this site to learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other websites to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)