No matter what your business provides or what industry you belong to, you need to provide high-value information to your site or blog users. For example, if you provide insurance-related services, you may want to provide users with useful information from government departments, such as news and updates on statistical findings, insurance advice, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, requires a lot of time and resources. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a ton of information, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your site readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Basic Definition And Information
- RSS, which, according to some stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also 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.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news, audio lists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is a structured XML (Extensible Markup Language) document that includes either full or summarized text along with metadata like date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and blogs that publish feeds and then browse any updates posted on these websites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their information automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different types 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 applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from many sites.
This detailed guide explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display content from other websites on your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful and legitimate method used to share content online. Feeds provide an easy way for web users to receive the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Most news reporting agencies use syndication to publish content from news sources around the world.
Syndication allows leading digital agencies to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics and up-to-the-minute newsworthy content from all around the globe without actually having to hire more content writers in every location around the world …
(Many online newspapers rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Global media publications syndicate their content using feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate their news stories using news feeds)
Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Leading digital news publishers provide links to a feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” 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.) …
(Many digital publishing agencies and major online media publications provide links to an RSS feed section. Image: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: New York Times)
These feed items give you access to information from different sections of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s content, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …
(It’s worth trying to get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
Your WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your sidebar or footer, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(You can access your WordPress RSS feed in the Meta section)
2) You can also find links and buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on your theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Links, or Social Share section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Follow Us, Share, or Link To Us toolbar)
4) You can also view your 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS …
(Feed items viewed on Firefox browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(RSS items as seen with a Chrome browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you want displayed in your Feeds section, go to your Reading Settings section and select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication feed items)
The feed section will display as many recent items you have specified section …
(The feed will show the number of items you have specified in your WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in feeds will display)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
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 a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and look for an RSS feed section using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content sourced from another site to your site.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their feed. You can use feeds to 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 sourced from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar …
(Let’s 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 feed URL to the clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content can now be seen on your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget – e.g. footer) …
(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 Content From RSS Feeds To Your Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to a post instead of the sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (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 RSS/Atom feeds that you specify.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to 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 plugin for WordPress that offers additional functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you import RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom backgrounds, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all tablets, phones, and computers and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of POWr contains a number of 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 Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options for WordPress.
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 display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
To inspect the comments in your feed, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items displayed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image 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 website or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Single Post Feeds
Being able to access an RSS feed for a single post item 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 making an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website displays content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer users a separate feed for each of these categories.
Just use the format shown below:
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
Copy the selected category link address …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories feed format)
The RSS feed now only displays content posted for that particular category …
(Category-specific RSS 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 – Set Up Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds
You can publish a page of RSS feeds that allows readers to subscribe only to specific categories …
(Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds)
Link an RSS button image like the one shown below to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a separate page …
(RSS image. 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 content here:
RSS Feeds – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations without touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest entries
- 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: RSS feed containing single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed containing the latest comments made on a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/08/25/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed that contains the latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Place your subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you publish useful content. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add content from other sites and get other users to share your content with 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 – Resources:
- RSS Icons – Visit online resource sites like iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org – WordPress software documentation site. Go here for additional information about using WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add content from other websites to your site using RSS.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you expand your business online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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