No matter what what industry you are a part of, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides health-related services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with the latest information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, 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 sifting, researching and organizing, checking your sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually kept 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 simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – An Overview
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that users can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news, videos, etc., to which any user can choose to subscribe.
- RSS feeds can be read with web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based programs called feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders are used to access content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to this content) to other sites.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF (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 different RSS feeds to display news and updates from several different sources.
This in-depth guide explains where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Media publications rely on content syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers and many highly-visited online publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and the most recent newsworthy stories from all around the planet without actually having to post additional news reporting and content writing departments to every location in the world …
(Online newspapers and many highly-visited online media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. online media publications syndicate their information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most sites actually want you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value 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 new opportunities to generate significant web visitors.
Leading news reporting agencies will contain an RSS feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading news reporting agencies contain an RSS feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(RSS directory. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feeds give you access to different areas of the site (e.g. business news, travel news, editorials, etc.)
An RSS feed list can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need to do is 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 site on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s business additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business 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 websites to syndicate your content.
When other sites syndicate content using your feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Get other websites to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
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 number of ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(You can access your WordPress RSS feed in the Meta section)
2) You can also find links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on the WP theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Subscribe, Share, or Links section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Links, or Follow toolbar)
4) You can also view your feed by simply 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 website or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS …
(Feed entries seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(Feed items as seen with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many entries you would like to show in your RSS page in the Reading Settings section. Enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication items setting)
The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified section …
(The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in your 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 articles as full text, or just a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will appear)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you have to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and look for their RSS feed button …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button. Image source: 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 feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into readable content.
How To Add Feeds To WordPress
In the example below, we are going to add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website that publishes content that you would like to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
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 widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content will now appear in the sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Added To WordPress 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 Feed Content To Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin section for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some autoblogging plugins for WordPress that let you create new using RSS feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an 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 into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WP Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all phones, tablets, and computers and supports text in every language.
The premium version of this plugin contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WP Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin 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 powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a versatile syndication plugin for WordPress.
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 display all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies RSS feeds to include pages and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.
To access these comments, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (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 the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed items viewed on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed 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 website or blog is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Single Items
Being able to select an RSS feed for an individual post 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 single post item is shown below:
(Individual Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the post URL, WordPress will return the comments for your 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 your entire site’s feed.
If your website displays content published under multiple categories, you can provide a separate feed for each different category.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(Format for WP category feed)
Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …
(Copy your category link address …)
Now, add “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for category)
Your category RSS feed now only contains content published under that particular category …
(Category 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 – Publish A List Of Feeds
You can provide your own list of feeds on your site that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Publish Your Own List Of RSS Feeds)
You can link a button image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all your individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS icon. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with inserting tables into WordPress content, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Notes
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 various feed configurations that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/05/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/07/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes 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 feeds. Place your subscribe link or button in a visible location …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if your content is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get online users to syndicate your content with 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 Resources:
- RSS Graphics – Visit sites like www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation. Go here 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 feeds, 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 problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results 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