No matter what product or service you provide or what industry your business is in, it’s important to provide high-quality information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, or improves engagement with your visitors. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, you may want to provide users with the latest information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from consular offices, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it requires an enormous amount of effort and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure 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 an easier way to keep your users up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS Made Simple
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, music playlists, etc., which any user can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured 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 then keep up with any updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate information.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates from different sources.
This article shows you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display content from other websites on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful way to share content online. Feeds provide online users with a simple and easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows most leading digital publishing agencies to deliver readers global stories and the most recent newsworthy content from all around the planet without having to employ and send more news reporting and content writing staff all around the world …
(Many digital publishing agencies and many leading media publications use syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information. News reporting agencies syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share content with other news publications)
Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Most news reporting agencies and leading online media publications will include 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”, “belfast telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites include a feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS feeds section. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these feed items allows readers to access different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS feed list can also contain subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also contain subcategories. Image: LA Times)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you have to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s content, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Using RSS Feeds)
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 a great idea to try and get other sites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
About Your WordPress RSS
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in your navigation menu …
(Your feed will show the number of items you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just as 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 your feeds appear)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you have 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, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for a ‘subscribe’ link or button …
(Search for an RSS feed button. 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 what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you could display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their RSS feed. You can use RSS 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 area …
(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
copy the RSS feed from a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content can now be seen in the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Added To 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 Add RSS Feed Content To Your WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside your Plugins section for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with additional functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.
The premium edition of POWr contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WP Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication for WordPress content.
As stated in the FeedWordPress website …
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 display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give it a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress)
Use RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to displaying feeds of your latest posts.
To inspect these comments, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items displayed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed entries as seen using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Specific Post RSS 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 displaying an RSS feed for a single post item is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create separate category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy the category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WP post categories feed)
The feed now only contains content assigned to this particular category …
(Category RSS 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 Your Own Feeds Directory
You can create a list of feeds for your subscribers that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Publish A Page Of RSS Feeds On Your Site)
All you need to do is link an icon like the one shown below to each feed and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS button graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations that do not require editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feeds you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed containing the latest comments published on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that includes individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed that displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/10/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed that includes 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 let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place a subscribe button image somewhere visible …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you publish great content that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add content to your site and get other sites to share your content online with WordPress and 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 RSS feed 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- Feed Images – Visit Iconspedia 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 provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about RSS.
- WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and information. Visit this site for more information about using feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, you now 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 using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group