No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, you need to provide high-value information to your site or blog visitors. For example, if your business provides accounting or financial planning services, you may want to provide users with the latest information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to sort through, gather, and organize a lot of information, 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 not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your users with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Stand For?
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, audio lists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- 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 sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these sites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their information.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (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 aggregate news and updates sourced from a number of sites.
This guide explains where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add content from other websites and blogs to your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful and legitimate method used to share web content. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for online users to receive the latest information posted on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Online media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy content from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers the latest news headlines and newsworthy content from around the globe without actually having to post more reporting agencies to every location around the world …
(Media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content)
Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Most news reporting agencies and major online media publications provide links to a feed section (look for menu links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier mail rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading news publishers have a feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com)
These feeds give you access to information about different sections of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS directory can also include further feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: Los Angeles Times)
Note: An RSS feed is simply 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.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your site has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
While adding a feed 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 sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate content using your feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
Your WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your navigation menu, just 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 let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on your WP theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Links, Social Share, or Follow toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Social Share, or Subscribe toolbar section)
4) You can also view your 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 WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …
(RSS entries viewed on a Firefox browser)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS items as seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many posts you would like to display in your Feeds 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 …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feed items setting)
Your feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section …
(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 RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds display)
To learn more about WordPress Post excerpts, see this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for a ‘subscribe’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.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 URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites or blogs to yours.
Adding Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily display on your site the latest 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, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on the sidebar …
(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 Feeds To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to posts instead of your sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside the ’Add Plugins’ section for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are some plugins you can check out that you can use to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging 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 according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress that offers extended functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of every item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom backgrounds, fonts, 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, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
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 loads of features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a simple and 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that combine content from various different sources), or display all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev)
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, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
Use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types 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
In addition to displaying feeds of your posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
You can access this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed entries as seen on Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Displaying RSS Feeds For Individual Post Items
Being able to use an RSS feed for an individual 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 making an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, 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 that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category 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 displays content published under many categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer readers a separate RSS feed for each different category.
Just use the format shown below:
(WP RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Copy the selected category link address to your clipboard …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for post categories)
The feed now only contains content posted in this 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 – Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds Page
You can set up a list of feeds on your site that allows your readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like large websites …
(Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds For Your Visitors)
All you need to do is link an RSS button graphic like the one shown below to your category feeds and then create a table or a list of your individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about adding tables to WordPress, go here:
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 you to configure a number of feed formats that do not require code editing skills. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can display …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the diagram 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 left on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for specific items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on a single post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed displaying the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/04/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/04/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed that contains the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your site users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Remember to make your feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you publish useful content. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add great content to your site and get visitors to subscribe to your content using WordPress and 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:
- Feed Icons – Visit an online resource site like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS.
- WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Visit this site for more information about WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know 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 websites to your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other posts on this site.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group