No matter what service or product your business provides, providing quality information to your site users is essential. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to include information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a ton of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually 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 entirely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is an easier way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your users with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What You Need To Know About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- When users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the site and keep feed subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news, videos, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML (Extensible Markup Language) 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 sites that publish feeds and then browse updates posted on these sites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from many sites.
This guide shows you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful method used to share web content. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for online users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many news reporting agencies and popular media publications rely on syndication to publish stories from news sources all around the world.
Syndication allows most leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories from all around the planet without actually having to send additional reporting agencies all around the world …
(Most news reporting agencies and popular media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Digital agencies syndicate their information using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by news reporting agencies to share newsworthy content with other news publications)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Most online newspapers and major content sites include 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.) …
(Most news reporting agencies and major content sites contain an RSS feed section. Image: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content areas of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use the 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.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s content and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Using RSS Feeds)
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 websites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get other online users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
Overview Of The WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer menu …
(The feed will display as many recent posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or a summary …
(WP Settings – 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 your feeds will appear)
To learn more about using excerpts in WordPress Posts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link …
(Search for an RSS feed button. 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 feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other websites to your WordPress site.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, 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 easily 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 the WordPress sidebar navigation menu)
copy the RSS feed from a website containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed should appear in your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(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 Add Feeds To Your WordPress 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 Plugins screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.
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 Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with extended functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is an advanced, feature-filled importer that lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of every item in your feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS, you can automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
This 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 of this plugin contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and 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 WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WP Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that combine and display content from many different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog Plugin)
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 of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)
RSS Includes Pages modifies RSS feeds to include pages in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts.
You can view this feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries displayed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Specific Post Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for specific 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 making an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(Feed For Specific Post)
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 add “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content about specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
With WordPress, you can create category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WP category RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Add “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for post categories)
Your category RSS feed now only contains content posted under that 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 Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can create your own page of RSS feeds for your subscribers that allows readers to subscribe to specific categories …
(Provide A Feeds Directory)
You can also link an RSS button graphic like the one shown below to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of all 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)
To learn more about creating tables in WordPress content, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize your feeds in several different ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows several RSS feed configurations without editing code. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can use and how to format the feeds …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that displays the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/06/14/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/04/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed displaying the latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
It’s a good idea to let your site visitors know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place a subscribe buttons somewhere visible …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you publish great information that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get online users to share your content with 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 Icons – Visit an online resource site like feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/RSS Feeds – WordPress documentation. Visit this site for additional information about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how 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 sites to your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please see other posts we have published on this site.
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