No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, providing quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides accounting or financial planning services, it’s not a bad idea to include information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it involves a great deal of work and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton of data, 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 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 a simpler way to continually provide your users with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What You Need To Know About RSS
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, video lists, etc., to which any user can choose to subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with other metadata like published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then view updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate content.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. 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 devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
This article 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 content from other websites and blogs to your site using RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful way to share content online. Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on different websites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many digital news publishers and highly-visited media publications use content syndication to publish news from news sources around the world.
Syndication allows leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers global stories and the most recent news from around the globe without having to send more staff and news writers to every location around the world …
(Media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content with other sites. online media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Digital content publishers syndicate content using feeds)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Many digital publishers and major sites provide links to an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading news reporting agencies contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these feeds lets you access information about different sections of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further feed subdirectories …
(An RSS feed directory can also contain subcategories. Image Source: Los Angeles Times)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
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 helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(The Benefits Of Using RSS Feeds)
While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other websites to syndicate your content.
When other sites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Look for ways 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 all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed page will show the number of posts as 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 as full text, or just as a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed will appear)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ link or icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds.
Adding A Feed To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other site’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media comments, 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 the WordPress sidebar area)
First, Find a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now appear in the 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:
How To Add Content From RSS Feeds To Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of a sidebar? You sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins admin screen for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
Here are a number of plugins you can check out that allow you to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you import RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
RSS Post Importer can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, borders, fonts, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.
The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication options for WordPress site 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 combine and display posts from various different sources), or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev WP Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (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 and Custom Post Types Plugin)
The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin modifies the default WordPress RSS feed to include pages and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users.
To see this, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries as seen using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries viewed with a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Displaying RSS Feeds For Specific Post Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for specific post items 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 accessing an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
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 append “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category 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 your site publishes content under various categories, you can offer visitors a separate feed for each post category.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(WP category feed format)
Copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress category RSS feed)
The feed now only contains content specific to 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 Feeds List
You can create a list of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them …
(Create A Directory Of RSS Feeds For Your Subscribers)
Link an image like the one shown below to each feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress here:
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 feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several feed configurations without code editing skills. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that includes the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that contains single post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/07/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed containing latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button in a visible location …
(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you publish useful content that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get other users to subscribe to your content online with 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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- Feed Icons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and reference. Visit this site to learn more about WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other websites and blogs to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, you now 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 website or blog please see other great content on this site.
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