No matter what your business provides or what industry you are in, providing high-quality information to your blog users is vitally important. For example, if you provide health-related services, you may want to publish the latest information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it requires an enormous amount of effort and resources. You have to do a ton of information sorting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is kept 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.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to provide your readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your blog subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What You Need To Know About RSS
- RSS, which, according to some experts stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically check the website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog post items, news, audio playlists, 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 such as date of publishing, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these websites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their information.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to receive news and updates from different sources.
This 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 sites on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way of sharing web content. Feeds provide web users with a way to keep up with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Many news reporting agencies rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources all around the world.
Syndication allows news reporting agencies and many influential online media publications to deliver readers the most recent news and interesting content from all over the globe without having to employ and post more news reporting departments to every location around the world …
(Most online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content. Digital publishing agencies syndicate their information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share content with other publications)
Most websites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows great information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Leading digital publishing agencies provide links to an RSS 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”, “star tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading online newspapers contain an RSS feed section. Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image Source: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to content from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, travel news, health news, etc.)
An RSS list can also include further feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s business additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Has Many Benefits!)
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 websites to use YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
About Your WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed as part of your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Access your WordPress RSS feed from the Meta section)
2) You can also find links and buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Link To Us, or Social Share floating, slide-out, or fixed toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Share, or Follow toolbar)
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 website is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …
(RSS feed entries seen on Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS feed entries seen with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many entries you want to display in your Feeds section, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
The feed section will show the number of posts as you have specified section …
(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 the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts in the feed as full text, or just a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed will display)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for an RSS feed button …
(Look for an RSS feed link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that is readable by humans.
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress Sites
In the example below, we’ll add content from other site’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add A Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, 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 feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media comments, 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)
First, find a website containing content that you want to display on your sidebar and copy its feed URL …
(Copy the feed URL)
Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content should appear in your sidebar (or wherever you have placed the RSS widget) …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WP Sidebar)
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 Add Feed Content To Your Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin screen for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins that allow you to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts and pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds into campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WP Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can automatically combine and display content from a number of different sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, borders, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin version contains many additional features.
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 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, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication options for WordPress site 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 site (sites that combine and display posts from multiple sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
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 your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages WordPress Plugin)
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.
You can view the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries as seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: 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 has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Specific Item Feeds
Being able to access 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 creating an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
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 add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from a specific post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(Use this format for WP post categories feed)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy the category URL …)
Now, add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP category RSS feed format)
The RSS feed now only contains content published in that category …
(Category 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 A Directory Of Feeds For Your Visitors
You can publish your own page of RSS feeds on your site that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories …
(Publish Your Own List Of Feeds For Your Subscribers)
Link a button like the one shown below to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a new page …
(RSS icon. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial on creating tables in WordPress content here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure different feed types without code editing skills. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that contains the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that contains single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/03/17/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed displaying latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed displaying the latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ link somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if your content is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add someone else’s content and get others to syndicate your content online 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Feed Icons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and information. Go here for additional information about using WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress please see our related posts section.
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