No matter what what industry you belong to, you need to provide high-quality information to your site users. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to include the latest information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.

To create and publish this kind of information, however, requires a lot of time and resources. You have to sift through, research, 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 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.

Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your readers up-to-date with your information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS is the simplest way to provide your site visitors with the latest information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

What Does RSS Mean?

• RSS, which, according to some definitions stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is also often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
• RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that their users can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, news, audio lists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata such as published date, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse any updates posted on these websites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate information.
• There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) 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 tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from various other websites.

In this article, we will show you where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple and easy way to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s look at syndication.

Media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from news sources around the world.

Syndication allows digital content publishers to deliver readers stories and news items from around the planet without actually having to employ and set up additional staff everywhere in the world …

(News reporting agencies rely on syndication to publish content from other news agencies around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share information legitimately. Digital content agencies syndicate news stories using news feeds …

(Online newspapers syndicate stories using feeds)

Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.

Most news reporting agencies and major sites include an RSS feed section (look for links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “chicago tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Leading online newspapers include an RSS feed section. Image: SMH )

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

(RSS feeds directory. Image: nytimes.com)

These RSS feeds allow readers to access content from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, jobs, etc.)

Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Image: LA Times)

Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use feeds, all you have to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into software that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Syndicating Content – Benefits

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

(The Benefits Of Content Syndication)

While adding RSS feeds 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 syndicate your content.

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

(Get other website owners to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

WordPress Feed

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

Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar or footer, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(Meta widget)

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

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

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

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

(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Links, or Follow floating, slide-out, or fixed toolbar)

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

• http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
• http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your site’s feed page …

(RSS content viewed using Firefox)

Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(RSS content displayed on a Google Chrome browser)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

You can specify how many items you would like to display in your RSS Feed section, by going to your Reading Settings section and entering the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WP Reading Settings – Syndication feed items)

The feed section will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section …

(Your feed page will show the number of items you have specified in your 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 RSS feed is whether to display posts in the feed as full text, or just a summary …

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

Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …

(Post excerpts affect how feeds will display)

To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this tutorial:

• Post Excerpts A Guide For Beginners

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 a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.

Let’s see how this works.

First, find a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and look for their RSS feed icon …

(Search for a ‘subscribe’ icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

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

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

Adding Feeds To WordPress Sites

Let’s show you how to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.

How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.

Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar area …

(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)

copy the RSS feed from a website containing content that you want to display on your site to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

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

(WordPress RSS Widget)

To learn more about using widgets, go here:

• Configuring Widgets On Your Sidebar Navigation Section

Refresh your web browser. The content should now appear in the sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …

(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 Feeds To Your WordPress Posts

What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar?

You can do this using plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.

(’Add Plugins’ search results)

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

The plugins below can be used to 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)

WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to categories and campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

RSS Post Importer can be used to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.

RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article 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 – WordPress Plugin)

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

The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, backgrounds, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.

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

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes WP Plugin)

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

This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes WP Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a simple and 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 sites, or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog WordPress 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 the URL of your feed, 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 and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)

The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin modifies your RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types WP Plugin

Using RSS – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts.

You can inspect these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed items viewed on Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …

(RSS comments feed items as seen on Google Chrome)

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

(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: 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 is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Displaying RSS Feeds For Single Posts

Being able to select an RSS feed for individual posts 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 using an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:

(Specific Post Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the post URL, 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 post, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

With WordPress, you can create category feeds.

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

(Use this format for WP category feed)

Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …

(Select and copy your category URL …)

Append “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for post categories)

The RSS feed will now only include content posted for that particular 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 – Create A Feeds Page

You can publish a feeds list that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in, just like the larger authoritative sites do …

(Provide Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds For Visitors)

All you need to do is link a button image to category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a separate page …

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

For a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress, go here:

• Inserting Tables In WordPress

RSS – Additional Notes

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

WordPress allows a number of feed configurations that do not require messing with code. For example, here are just some of the kinds of custom feed types you can use …

(Different Feed Types You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)

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

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that contains the latest comments left on your website
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed containing a post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/08/31/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/10/feed/

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

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Contains the latest entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Includes latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

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

(Encourage your site users to syndicate your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality content that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add content to your site and get online users to share your content using 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 🙂

RSS Resources:

• Download RSS Images – Visit a site like www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
• WordPress Codex: Feeds – WordPress documentation. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress RSS feeds.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites on 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 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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