No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, it’s important to provide quality information on your site or blog that educates, informs, or improves engagement with your readers. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to include useful information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, requires a lot of effort and expertise. You have to do a lot of information gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, 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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some experts stands for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for updated content. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news headlines, videos, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- You can read RSS feeds using a program called a feed reader, or feed aggregator. Feed readers are used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content online.
- 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 that feeds are compatible with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from many different websites.
In this detailed article, we show you 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 and blogs to your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.
Global media and digital news agencies use content syndication to publish news from news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers and many popular online publications to deliver readers the most recent news headlines from all around the globe without having to send more reporting agencies to every location in the world …
(Many online newspapers and many influential media publications use content syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing content)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information 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.
Major sites include 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”, “la times rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most digital agencies and major content sites will include an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different areas of the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives you access to content about different areas of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use a feed, all you have to do is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s business additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(RSS Feeds Has Many Benefits!)
While adding an RSS feed 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 use your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Look for ways to get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on the sidebar menu …
(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts in the feed as full text, or a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will appear)
If you need help Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s see how this works.
First, find a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and look for their RSS feed link …
(Search for an RSS feed link. 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 RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of your feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content for humans.
How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add A Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could display on 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 easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Find a website that publishes content that you would like to add to your sidebar and copy its feed URL …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Area – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should display on your 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 Feed Content To WordPress Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can do this using plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
The plugins 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 Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
RSS Post Importer can be used to curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a standalone 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 multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, tablets, and phones and supports text in all languages.
The premium version contains many 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 curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin 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 site (sites that display posts from various different sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
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 very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)
Install RSS Includes Pages if you would like to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to displaying RSS feeds of your posts.
You can inspect the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS comments feed items seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image 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 site has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Specific Item RSS Feeds
Being able to select an RSS feed for an individual 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 a specific post is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
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 URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can create separate category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(Feed format for category)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy your category link address …)
Now, append “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress RSS feed format for category)
The feed now only includes content posted for this 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 Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can set up a directory of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Provide Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds For Subscribers)
Link an icon to category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
We have created a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress pages and posts here:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in various different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of different feed types without touching code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can use and how to create these feeds …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the image 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 – Feed that displays the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed that includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/08/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed displaying 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 feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get other sites to syndicate your content 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 feed 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- RSS Icons – Visit iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation repository. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems 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 the WordPress CMS software 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