No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, you need to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides taxation services, it’s not a bad idea to include the latest information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.

The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it involves an enormous amount of time and expertise. You have to sift through, gather, and organize a ton of data, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is 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 entirely beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with your information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the easiest way to provide your users with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – Useful Information

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
• Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog post items, news, video lists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
• RSS feed content can be viewed with a software program called a feedreader, or aggregator. Aggregators can be used to access new content published on websites and syndicate this content online.
• 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 that feeds are compatible with different devices, readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from various sites.

In this comprehensive article, we will explain where 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 sites to your site using RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide a way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on different sites.

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

Global media publications rely on syndication to publish content from news agencies around the world.

Syndication allows most leading online newspapers to deliver readers the latest news headlines and newsworthy stories from around the planet without having to hire more news staff in every location around the world …

(Most online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies around the world.)

Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content. Global media publications syndicate their stories using feeds …

(News reporting agencies syndicate stories using news feeds)

Most websites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web traffic.

Many news reporting agencies 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.) …

(Most digital news agencies and major online media publications will contain a feed section. Source: SMH )

Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of different RSS feeds …

(RSS feeds directory. Image: NY Times RSS)

gives you access to information about different sections of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)

An RSS feed directory can also contain further feed subcategories …

(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is only a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is copy the URL and paste it into an application 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 website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …

(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)

While adding 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 you also want other sites to use YOUR content.

When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(Get other online users to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your traffic!)

WordPress RSS Feed

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.

Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in your navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(WordPress Meta section – Entries RSS)

2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.

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

(Copy RSS URLs 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 Links, Follow, or Share toolbar section …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Subscribe, or Link To 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 site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

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

(RSS feed entries seen using Firefox)

Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …

(Feed entries as seen using a Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

To specify how many entries you would like to display 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 …

(Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items field)

Your feed section will display the number of items you have specified section …

(Your feed will display as many recent posts as you have specified in the WordPress 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 articles as full text, or a summary …

(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will display)

To learn more about using WordPress Post excerpts, see this step-by-step tutorial:

• Post Excerpts An Overview

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website or blog and search for a ‘subscribe’ link 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 the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feed reader …

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

Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.

Adding A Feed To Your WP Site

In the example below, we are going to add RSS content from another site to yours.

How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding 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 from an RSS feed to your sidebar …

(Add an RSS feed to your sidebar)

First, Find a website or blog containing content that you would like to add to your site and copy the feed URL …

(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)

Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Site

Load your website in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed will now display on the sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget – e.g. custom menu, footer, etc) …

(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

Adding A Feed To WordPress Posts

Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post instead of the sidebar? It sure can!

You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search inside the Plugins admin section for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.

Here are a few plugins that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WP Plugin)

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 feeds into categories and campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)

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

For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)

The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text RSS feeds 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 separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)

POWr RSS Feed combines and displays content from various content using RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom colors, fonts, backgrounds, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.

The premium plugin version contains many additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes 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 functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress)

FeedWordPress is a flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site-generated content.

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 site (sites that display content from multiple sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

Autoblog

(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)

The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies your RSS feeds to include pages and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin

WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to making RSS feeds of your posts available to online users, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.

You can view these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu …

(Comments Feed)

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

(Comments feed items seen on Firefox)

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

(RSS comments feed items seen on Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …

(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)

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 has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Specific Post Items

Being able to use an RSS feed for a specific post item 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 making an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:

(Specific Post Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post URI, 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 web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual post content itself.

Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds

Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

WordPress allows you to create category feeds.

Just use the format shown below:

(RSS feed format for category)

Select and copy the category link address …

(Select and copy your category link address …)

Add the word “feed” to the end of it …

(WordPress post categories feed format)

The category RSS feed now only displays content posted in this category …

(Category-specific 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 – Create An RSS Feeds List

You can provide a list of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large websites …

(Set Up Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Visitors)

You can also link an icon like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

We have written a detailed tutorial about adding tables to WordPress here:

• Creating And Adding Tables To WordPress Content

RSS Feeds – Notes

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

WordPress allows you to configure different feed types without touching code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can use …

(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)

For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image 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 – Contains the latest comments posted on your blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed for individual items
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: RSS Feed that contains the latest comments made on individual posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Feed displaying the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/12/29/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Contains latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/10/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays 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: Contains the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

Remember to let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ button or link somewhere visible …

(Remember to make your feeds visible your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you provide great information that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Easily add great content to your site and get other sites to syndicate your content 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 feed 🙂

Additional RSS Resources:

• Feed Images – Visit an online resource site like www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, 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 broadening public understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
• WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation site. Visit this site for more information about using WordPress and RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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