No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, it’s important to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to provide users with useful information from government and foreign travel-related departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, advice from consulates, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, requires a great deal of work and resources. You have to sort through, gather, and organize a lot 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 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.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the simplest ways to provide your subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Basic Information
- RSS, which, according to some experts is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It is 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.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news, audio lists, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- You can read RSS feeds with software called feedreaders, or feed aggregators. Aggregators can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and any updates made to the content) to many online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. 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, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from various sources.
In this comprehensive article, we explain 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 very powerful and legitimate way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide web users with a simple way to keep up with the latest information posted on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Global media and news reporting agencies use syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows most leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers the most recent newsworthy items from all around the planet without actually having to employ additional content writers in every location in the world …
(Many news reporting agencies and many highly-visited online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. online media publications syndicate their stories using feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives 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 include 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”, “huffington post rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major online media publications contain a feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS Feeds. Image: nytimes.com)
These feed items allow you to source content from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, editorials, etc.)
An RSS feed list can also contain subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Using RSS Feeds
Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s business, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Content Syndication - Benefits)
While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get visitors to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer …
(The feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(WordPress 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 affect how your feed content will appear)
If you need help Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you have to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for their RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed section. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.
Adding Feeds To WordPress Sites
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to your site.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Find a site containing content that you would like to add to your sidebar and copy its RSS feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content should now appear on your 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:
Adding RSS Feeds To Posts
Can you add content from an RSS feed to posts? Yes, you can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are some plugins that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts and pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is a popular, feature-rich importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, phones, and tablets and supports text in all languages.
The premium plugin version contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create 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/Facebook/Twitter, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible syndication 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 plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display posts from 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 in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give it a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts.
You can access this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image 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 subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using RSS Feeds For Individual Posts
Being able to use 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 displaying an RSS feed for a single post is shown below:
(Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the post, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to syndicate content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can easily create individual category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(WordPress RSS feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Copy the category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP RSS feed format for post categories)
The feed will now only contain content specific to that particular category …
(Category 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 Your Own List Of Feeds For Subscribers
You can create a feeds page that allows readers to subscribe only to specific content, just like large websites …
(Provide A Directory Of Feeds)
All you need to do is link an image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
For a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress content, go here:
RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations that do not require editing code. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown 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 – Feed displaying the latest comments left on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on single items
- 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/2015/02/08/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe button image in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add content to your site and get others to subscribe to your content using 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:
- RSS Feed Graphics – Visit a site like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org/WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation repository. Go here for additional information about using WordPress RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to add content from other sites to your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)