No matter what service or product you sell, you need to provide high-quality information to your site users. For example, if you provide medical services, it’s a good idea to include the latest information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.

The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data gathering, researching and organizing, checking sources for accuracy, content writing and editing (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 not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a simpler way to provide your site visitors with expert, up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the easiest way to provide your users with up-to-date information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Basic Information About RSS

• RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news, audios, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
• RSS feeds can be read with a software program called a feed reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders are used to find content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and updates made to the content) to other online properties.
• There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP 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, feedreaders, and programs.
• Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from various sources.

In this guide, you are going to learn where 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 RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful way of sharing web content. Feeds provide a way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s look at how syndication is used.

Most news reporting agencies rely on content syndication to publish news and stories from content sources all around the world.

Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies and many leading online publications to deliver readers the most recent news from around the planet without having to send more news writers to every location in the world …

(Many content publishers and popular media publications use syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the world.)

Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. Global media publications syndicate their content using feeds …

(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)

Most sites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate significant web visitors.

Most leading online media publications provide links to a 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”, “belfast telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most content publishing agencies and major sites will include a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com)

Each of these feeds lets readers access content about different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)

Feed sections can also include further feed subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Image 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 process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s website and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that content …

(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)

While adding RSS feeds 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 sites to use YOUR content.

When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Look for ways to get users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)

Overview Of The WordPress RSS

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.

Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to get your 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 …

(Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)

2) You can also find built-in links and buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your feed.

For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)

3) On many sites and again, depending on the theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Links, or Stay In Touch toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Link To Us, or Follow Us section)

4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:

• http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WP installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS feed page …

(RSS content seen using a Firefox web browser)

Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …

(Feed entries viewed on Google Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

To specify how many posts you want to show in your RSS page, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WP Reading Settings – Syndication feed items field)

Your feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section …

(Your 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 your WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or as a summary …

(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 affect how a feed will appear)

To learn more about using WordPress Post excerpts, go here:

• Post Excerpts - A Tutorial

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, find a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or button using any of the methods described earlier …

(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.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 what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)

Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.

How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site

In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites to yours.

How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you could easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media updates, 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 …

(Add an RSS feed to your sidebar)

copy the RSS feed URL from a website or blog that publishes content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:

• How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar Menu

Refresh your web browser. The content will now display in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been inserted – e.g. custom menu) …

(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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add RSS Feed Content To Your Posts

Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? It sure can!

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search inside your ’Add Plugins’ screen for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.

The plugins below are useful for adding feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an auto blogging 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 them into categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin that offers extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).

For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to import RSS feeds directly into posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

RSS Post Importer lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)

The POWr RSS Feed plugin lets you combine and display content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.

The premium version contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.

This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress-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 various different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog by WPMUDev 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:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev WP Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages)

Use RSS Includes Pages if you would like to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages Plugin

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to displaying RSS feeds of your posts.

To access this feed, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed entries displayed with a Firefox browser)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …

(Comments feed items displayed using a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …

(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed 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 site has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Displaying Specific Item Feeds

Being able to use an RSS feed for specific posts 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 single post items is shown below:

(Single Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post address, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post RSS Feed)

Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Category Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

If you publish content under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily provide a separate feed for each different category.

All you need to do is use the format shown below:

(Format for WordPress category feed)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Copy the selected category link address …)

Now, add the word “feed” to the end of it …

(Use this format for WordPress category feed)

The RSS feed now only includes content posted under this 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 Page Of Feeds For Visitors

You can provide your own list of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …

(Provide A Directory Of RSS Feeds)

You can link an icon to category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)

If you need help with creating tables in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• How To Add Tables To WordPress

RSS – Notes

You can customize feeds in several different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows various feed configurations without touching code. Here are some examples of feeds you can use …

(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)

Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – contains your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments published on your website or blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing specific items
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Contains the latest comments made on single items
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Contains latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/12/30/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Displays the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/06/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Includes the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Contains latest posts 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 a subscribe link somewhere visible …

(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your feeds!)

Finally, keep in mind that online users will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Add someone else’s content and get others to syndicate your content using RSS feeds!)

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 Feed Images – Visit FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
• WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation and reference. Visit this site to learn more about WordPress feeds.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please see our related posts section.

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