No matter what what industry you belong to, providing high-value information on your site or blog is essential. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s not a bad idea to include the latest information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.

To create and publish this type of information, however, involves a huge amount of time and resources. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, writing and editing 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 is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is an easier way to continually provide your site visitors with expert, up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - The easiest way to provide your subscribers with the latest information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

What You Need To Know About RSS

• RSS, which, according to some experts is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that their users can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news headlines, music playlists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata like published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and blogs that publish feeds and then keep up with any updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate web content automatically.
• Feeds can be made available in different types and 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 applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from different sources.

This article explains 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 their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing content online. Feeds provide web users with a simple way to receive the latest information posted on sites they are interested in.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

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

Syndication allows leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers the most recent news from all over the globe without actually having to hire and send more news staff to every location in the world …

(Digital news publishing agencies rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share information legitimately. Global media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using news feeds …

(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share newsworthy content with other publications)

Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send 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.

Most online newspapers and major content sites provide links to an RSS feed section (look for menu links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “chicago tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Many news publishers contain a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )

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

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

These RSS feeds give readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, jobs, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further feed subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)

Note: A feed is simply a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

RSS Feeds – Benefits

Syndicating content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …

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

While adding feeds from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, 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 content, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …

(Get visitors to syndicate content using your feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)

WordPress RSS

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their sites.

Depending on which 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 standard or custom menu …

(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the 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 feeds is whether to display posts as full text, or just as a summary …

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

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

(Post excerpts affect how content in feeds will appear)

If you need help Post excerpts, go here:

• Post Excerpts An Overview

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s take a look at how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and look for their RSS feed icon using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the feed URL)

If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

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

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

Adding A Feed To WordPress

Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to yours.

Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their RSS feed. You can use 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …

(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)

First, Go to a website that publishes content that you would like to add to your sidebar and copy its RSS feed URL …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(WP RSS Widget)

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

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Blog Sidebar Section

Load your website in your web browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar …

(RSS Feed Added To WordPress Sidebar Menu)

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 WordPress Posts

Can you add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts? You sure can!

You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ search results – RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.

The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico Plugin)

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

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

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers additional functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).

For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to import RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)

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

The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)

With POWr RSS, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.

This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.

The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)

The WP Pipes plugin 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 powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export 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)

FeedWordPress is a flexible syndication plugin for WordPress 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.

FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(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 your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a 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 and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)

Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.

You can access the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

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

(Comments feed items seen on a Firefox browser)

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

(RSS 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 a feedreader …

(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Individual Post Items

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

(Specific Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post address, 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 post, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not the content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Category Feeds

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

If you publish content under multiple categories, you can easily offer subscribers a separate RSS feed for each category.

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

(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)

Copy the selected category link address …

(Copy the selected category URL …)

Add the word “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for category)

Your RSS feed will now only include content published in this category …

(Category-specific RSS 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 Your Own List Of RSS Feeds

You can create your own directory of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger websites do …

(Publish A Directory Of RSS Feeds For Your Site Visitors)

Link an icon like the one shown below to each category feed and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …

(RSS graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

To learn more about adding tables to WordPress posts, go here:

• How To Create And Add Tables With WordPress

RSS Feeds – Additional Notes

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

WordPress allows you to configure various feed formats without touching code. For example, here are some of the kinds of feeds you can display …

(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)

Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image above:

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

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments left on your blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on a post
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/02/19/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Displays latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/03/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays the latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Contains the latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

It’s a good idea to promote your feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button somewhere visible …

(Promote your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide great information that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Easily add content to your site and get other users to syndicate your content 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 🙂

Additional Resources:

• Feed Icons – Visit online resource sites like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable 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 furthering the understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS.
• WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – WordPress documentation and reference. Go here to learn more about using WordPress and RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 using RSS feeds.

Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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