No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is important. For example, if you provide accounting services, you may want to include useful information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sorting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is 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.
Thankfully, there is a much easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the simplest ways to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Mean?
- RSS is short for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- 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 often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, news headlines, audio playlists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be read using programs called RSS feed readers, or feed aggregators. Aggregators are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content online.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from a number of websites.
This in-depth article shows you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other websites to your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with an easy way to receive the latest information posted on different sites.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Media publications rely on syndication to publish content from news sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows news publishing agencies and many popular media publications to deliver readers the latest news headlines and newsworthy stories from all over the planet without actually having to set up additional news reporters and content writers in every location around the world …
(News reporting agencies and many leading media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish content from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. News reporting agencies syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share information with other news publications)
Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Most leading online media publications will include a 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”, “miami herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major content sites will contain a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of different RSS feeds …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
Each of these RSS feed items lets you access content from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, travel news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Using RSS Feeds
Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(The Benefits Of Using Feeds)
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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Try to get users to syndicate content using your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress Feed – About
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to get 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 …
(WordPress Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” 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 Social Share toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Stay In Touch, or Links fixed, floating, or slide-out toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS page …
(RSS items seen on Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS content displayed on Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many entries you want to show in your RSS Feed page, by going to your Reading Settings section and entering the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Syndication items)
The feed will display as many recent posts as you have specified section …
(Your feed page will display 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 the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or a summary …
(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 feeds appear)
We have created a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you have 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 see how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for a ‘subscribe’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon. 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 feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content sourced from another website or blog to your site.
Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can easily add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing content from their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website that publishes content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display on the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Added To Sidebar)
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 Feeds To Your Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of your sidebar? You sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins listed below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WP Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is a feature-rich importer that allows you to 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 – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress blog.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, 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 many other sources.
This plugin provides features 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 more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WP Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication options for WordPress.
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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or display all your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.
You can view these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar menu …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed items seen with a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 WP installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Specific Item RSS Feeds
Being able to select 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 using an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
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 your post address, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If you publish content under various categories, WordPress allows you to easily provide a separate RSS feed for each different category.
Just use the format below:
(Format for WordPress category RSS feed)
Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories feed format)
Your category RSS feed now only displays content posted under that 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 – Provide Your Own Feeds Page
You can publish your own list of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to specific content …
(Set Up Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds For Visitors)
You can link an RSS button image to a feed URL and then create a table or a list of your category 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)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about creating tables in WordPress posts and pages, go here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows different feed configurations without messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that displays your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed displaying the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that includes a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/11/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe button image in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add someone else’s content and get online users to syndicate your content using WordPress and 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 feed 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- Download RSS Graphics – Visit iconspedia.com/search/rss 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 – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Go here to learn more about using WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please see other great content on this site.
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