No matter what your business sells or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information to your blog users is important. For example, if your business provides health-related services, you may want to publish information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it takes a huge amount of effort and expertise. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a lot of data, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is kept 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your blog subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- After users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for content updates. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news, music playlists, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds using a software program called an RSS feed reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to access content on all kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to other sites.
- There are different feed formats and these can be 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 and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from several different sources.
In this guide, we will show you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to keep up with the latest information published on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Most news reporting agencies use syndication to publish newsworthy content from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies and many leading online media publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics and headlines from all around the globe without having to hire and send additional content writers to every location in the world …
(News reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. online media publications syndicate their news stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share information with other news publications)
Most sites actually would like you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major sites contain an RSS feed section (look for navigation links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many digital news agencies include an RSS feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)
gives you access to content about different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, science news, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also include further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Adding someone else’s content to your site 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 the content …
(Using Feeds - Benefits)
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 you also want other sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(It’s worth trying to get users to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
Overview Of The WordPress RSS
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in a navigation menu, you can 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 themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s 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 WordPress theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Links, or Follow toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Stay In Touch, or Link To Us section)
4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by simply 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS feed page …
(Feed items as seen using Firefox)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Feed items viewed with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you would like to display in your RSS section, by going to your Reading Settings section and selecting the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Syndication items field)
The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified section …
(The feed page will show the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display your posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will display)
We have written a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need 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 reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for an RSS feed section …
(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: 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 feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.
Adding An RSS Feed To WordPress Sites
Let’s show you how to add content from another website to your WordPress site.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business operates in, you can easily display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to 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 RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website or blog that publishes content that you would like to display on your sidebar and copy the RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
Next, go to your Widgets area and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now appear on your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been added – e.g. footer) …
(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 Your WordPress Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to a post instead of a sidebar? You sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ screen – RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need help 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)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin that offers extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each item in your feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
POWr RSS combines and displays content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin edition contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes 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 loads of powerful 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 more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a flexible 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 combine and display content from different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just 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 and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
To view this, locate the ‘Meta’ widget area on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries as seen with a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(Comments feed items displayed using a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image: 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 site has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Single Items
Being able to display an RSS feed for a specific post 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 creating an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(Individual 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 append “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site contains content published under several categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate RSS feed for each of your categories.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(Use this format for WP category RSS feed)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WP category feed)
The RSS feed now only includes content published under this particular category …
(Category-specific 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 – Set Up Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds On Your Site
You can provide a page of RSS feeds for your subscribers that allows your readers to subscribe only to specific categories …
(Provide A Page Of RSS Feeds)
All you need to do is link an RSS image to a 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 inserting tables into WordPress posts here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several feed configurations without messing with code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use on your site and how to create the 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 – contains your latest entries
- 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: Feed for an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that includes the latest comments made on individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/07/13/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
It’s a good idea to let users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ link or button somewhere visible …
(Promote your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add someone else’s content 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 feed 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- RSS Graphics – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about RSS.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Go here for more information about feeds in WordPress.
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 content from other websites to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now