No matter what product or service your business provides, providing quality information to your blog visitors is essential. For example, if you provide travel services, it’s a good idea to include information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, tips from embassies, etc.

The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to sort through, gather, and organize a ton of data, 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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.

Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with your information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your blog subscribers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – What You Need To Know

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
• RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news headlines, video lists, etc., which users can choose to subscribe to.
• You can view the content of an RSS feed with software-based tools called feedreaders, or aggregators. Feed readers can be used to find content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content (and any updates made to this content) to other online properties.
• There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also let you combine many RSS feeds to display news and updates from various sources.

This guide shows you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide a way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Many online newspapers and many popular media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news agencies all around the world.

Content syndication allows most leading news reporting agencies to deliver readers interesting stories and up-to-the-minute news headlines from all around the globe without actually having to employ and set up additional news staff everywhere around the world …

(Global media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the planet.)

Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content. News agencies syndicate their stories using feeds …

(News reporting agencies syndicate information using feeds)

Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.

Many news agencies and major content sites contain a feed section (look for links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “daily telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Most online newspapers and leading 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 feeds …

(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

Each of these feed items allows readers to access information from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, health news, etc.)

An RSS list can also contain subcategory feeds …

(An RSS feed list can also contain feed subcategories. Image Source: LA Times)

Note: A feed is only a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is to copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Syndicating Content – Benefits

Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and helps you by freeing you up from having to create this content …

(Content Syndication 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 use your content.

When other websites syndicate your feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Get visitors to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)

WordPress RSS Feed – Overview

By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:

1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed on the sidebar, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …

(You can access your WordPress RSS feed from the Meta section)

2) You can also find links and buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your feed.

For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …

(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)

3) On many websites and again, depending on your theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Social Share, Links, or Follow Us toolbar …

(Look for an RSS button in a a Subscribe, Links, or Social Share fixed, slide-out, or floating toolbar)

4) You can also view your RSS feed by simply 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 WP site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …

(RSS items seen with a Firefox web browser)

Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(RSS feed content seen with Google Chrome)

Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed

To specify how many items you would like to show in your RSS section, go to your Reading Settings section and type in the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …

(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feed items field)

Your feed will display as many recent items you have specified section …

(Your feed page will show as many recent 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 your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …

(Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …

(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds appear)

We have written a detailed tutorial about WordPress Post excerpts here:

• Using Post Excerpts

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, all you have to do to view a feed’s content is 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 for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, find a website whose feed you want to syndicate and search for a ‘subscribe’ button or link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look 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 what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …

(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)

Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.

How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Site

Let’s show you how to add content from other website or blog’s RSS feeds to your site.

How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can easily display on your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS 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 the WordPress sidebar …

(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)

First, Go to a website or blog that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy the RSS feed …

(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)

Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(Widgets Screen – RSS Widget)

To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Website

Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display in your 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:

• How To Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding Feeds To WordPress Posts

What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of a sidebar?

You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.

(’Add Plugins’ screen)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.

Here are some autoblogging plugins that let you automatically create new using RSS feeds:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).

For example, the Feed to Post extension allows you to import RSS feeds directly into posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

RSS Post Importer lets you curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.

The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each feed item as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.

This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom borders, colors, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all phones, computers, and tablets and supports text in every language.

The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed WP Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a versatile syndication plugin 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, Facebook, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog

(Autoblog Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog Plugin For WordPress

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)

RSS Includes Pages modifies your default WordPress RSS feed to include pages in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress

Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.

To inspect this feed, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in the Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content viewed on Firefox browser)

Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which web browser you use …

(Comments feed items displayed on Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …

(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the 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 WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Individual Items

Being able to create an RSS feed for an individual post item can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS directories, 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 specific post item is shown below:

(Single Post RSS Feed)

To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.

(Single Post Feed)

Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the post address, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not the post content itself.

Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from a particular category. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

WordPress allows you to create separate category feeds.

All you have to do is use the format shown below:

(WP category RSS feed format)

Copy the selected category URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the category link address to your clipboard …)

Add “feed” to the end of it …

(Feed format for post categories)

Your RSS feed will now only contain content specific to this 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 – Provide Your Own Feeds List

You can create a page of feeds for visitors that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger online publishers do …

(Publish An RSS Feeds Directory)

You can link an RSS button image like the one shown below to your category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all your individual feeds on a new page …

(RSS image. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

To learn more about adding tables to WordPress content, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:

• Adding Tables In WordPress Content

RSS Feeds – Additional 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 several feed configurations without touching code. Here are some examples of custom feed types you can create …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Feed that includes the latest comments left on your site
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: RSS feed containing single posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: RSS Feed that includes the latest comments made on a single post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – RSS feed that includes the latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/01/20/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Feed displaying the latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/03/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Includes latest posts for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Contains the latest items for a custom type (e.g. book)
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book

One more thing …

It’s a good idea to let your users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ buttons somewhere visible …

(Encourage your site users to syndicate your feeds!)

Keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Add someone else’s content and get other sites to share your content with WordPress and 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 🙂

Additional Resources:

• Download RSS Icons – Visit sites like feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing RSS specifications, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about RSS.
• WordPress Codex: Feeds – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Visit this site for additional information about using WordPress RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add content from other sites to your site using RSS feeds.

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 learn more about the benefits of using the WP software please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.

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