No matter what what industry you are a part of, it’s vitally important to provide quality information on your site or blog. For example, if you provide insurance-related services, it’s not a bad idea to publish the latest information from government departments, such as news and updates on statistical findings, insurance advice, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it is really time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a ton 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 is not only a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to provide your users with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your blog subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “news 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.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, audios, etc., which any user can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata like published date, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites or blogs that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and 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 that feeds are compatible with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from different sources.
In this in-depth article, we will show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites and blogs on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple way to keep up with the latest information posted on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Global media publications use syndication to publish content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers and many popular media publications to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics and up-to-the-minute headlines from all around the globe without actually having to hire and post more news reporters and content writers to every place around the world …
(News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information)
Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content sites include a 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”, “belfast telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most digital content agencies and major content sites contain an RSS feed section. Image: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …
(RSS feeds list. Image Source: nytimes.com)
gives you access to different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, sports news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategories …
(An RSS feed directory can also include feed subdirectories. Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed 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 site has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s site, it also adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to use your content.
When other websites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get visitors to syndicate content using your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer menu …
(The feed page will show 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
Another setting in the WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles in your feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP 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 feeds appear)
If you need help Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for a ‘subscribe’ button …
(Search for an RSS feed icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress
In the example below, we are going to add content from other sites to yours.
How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is 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 use RSS 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 from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a site containing content that you want to display on your site …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, go to your Widgets area and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WP Sidebar Menu)
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:
Adding A Feed To WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to a post instead of a sidebar?
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
The plugins below are useful for adding feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, borders, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, tablets, and phones and supports text in any language.
The premium version of this plugin contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WP 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 loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress is a flexible syndication plugin for WordPress.
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.
You can use this FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display posts from many different sources), or display all of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages)
Install RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you want 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:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.
To view these, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content viewed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(Comments feed entries as seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image: 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 website or blog is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Single Item Feeds
Being able to use an RSS feed for an individual post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items 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 a specific post item is shown below:
(Specific Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site displays content published under many categories, you can easily create a separate RSS feed for each category.
Just use the format below:
(Use this format for WP post categories feed)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WP category RSS feed)
The RSS feed will now only include content posted in that 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 – Publish An RSS Feeds Page
You can publish a directory of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds Page)
Link an RSS icon like the one shown below to a feed URL and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress pages and posts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows different feed configurations without editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that includes the latest comments posted on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for an individual post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that displays the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/06/14/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your feed. Place a subscribe button image somewhere visible …
(Remember to make your feeds visible your feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if you publish great content. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add someone else’s content and get visitors to syndicate your content online using 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- RSS Feed Images – Visit feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org/Feeds – Official WordPress documentation and reference repository. Go here for additional information about using RSS 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 their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.
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