No matter what service or product you sell or what industry your business belongs to, it’s vitally important to provide high-value information to your site or blog readers. For example, if your business provides health-related services, it’s not a bad idea to include information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it takes a huge amount of effort and resources. 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 make sure that this information is continually 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 entirely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your blog subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that their site readers can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, audios, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
- You can view the content of an RSS feed using a software program called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to access content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and any updates made to this content) to various online properties.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from different sources.
In this detailed guide, we will explain how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS 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. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple and easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at the uses of content syndication.
Online media publications rely on content syndication to publish stories from content sources around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies and many influential online publications to deliver readers interesting stories and the latest headlines from all over the planet without having to hire and send additional writers to every location in the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their stories using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate their information using news feeds)
Most websites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content sites provide links to a feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say “RSS” 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.) …
(Major content sites contain a feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS feeds directory. Image: nytimes.com)
These feed items give you access to information from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also contain further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. All you have to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using Feeds
Adding content from someone else’s website on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create that 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 you also want other sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Look for ways to get other website owners to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed 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 feeds is whether to display posts as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will appear)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and look for a ‘subscribe’ button …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
How To Add Feeds To WordPress Sites
In the example below, we’ll add RSS content from another website or blog to your site.
How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can easily display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can easily 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 sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a site containing content that you want to add to your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear in your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Content 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 A Feed To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? It sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside the ’Add Plugins’ section for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use 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 feeds into 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 autoblogging plugin for WordPress with extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
POWr RSS allows you to automatically combine content from various RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version 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 WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export 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 flexible syndication plugin for WordPress site-generated 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that combine posts from multiple sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
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 the URL of your feed, give it a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can view this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(RSS comments feed content viewed on a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Single Post Feeds
Being able to select an RSS feed for a specific post item can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for using an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(Specific Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI 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 URL, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can easily create separate category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(Use this format for WP post categories RSS feed)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Your category feed now only includes content posted in this category …
(Category 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 – Create Your Own List Of RSS Feeds
You can publish your own RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to specific content …
(Provide An RSS Feeds List)
Link a button to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of all your category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button image. Image: 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:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows different feed configurations without touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of feeds you can create …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that contains the latest comments published on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/04/31/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/01/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: Feed containing latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains the latest posts 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 in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you provide great content. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add content from other sites and get others to share your content online with 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 RSS feed 🙂
Resources:
- RSS Feed Images – Visit www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing RSS specifications, guiding developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and information. Go here for additional information about RSS feeds in WordPress.
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 to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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