No matter what what industry you are in, providing high-value information to your blog readers is important. For example, if your business provides accounting or financial planning services, it’s not a bad idea to publish the latest information from the taxation office, such as news or updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, requires a great deal of effort and expertise. You have to do a lot of information gathering, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- When a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and keeps feed subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, videos, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an 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 websites and then view updates posted on these websites through an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their information.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 allow you to combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from various sources.
In this in-depth article, we show you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide a way for web users to keep up with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers up-to-the-minute newsworthy items from all around the planet without having to employ more writers everywhere in the world …
(Digital publishers and many leading media publications use syndication to publish content from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. News reporting agencies syndicate information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content)
Most sites actually would like you to share 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 can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most content publishers and major sites include a feed section (look for navigation 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.) …
(Most content agencies and major online media publications have a feed section. Image: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives you access to content from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(A feed list can also contain feed subdirectories. Image Source: LA Times)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. To use an RSS feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into an application that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
RSS Feeds – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s site and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
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 a great idea to try and get other websites to use your content.
When other sites syndicate your feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Look for ways to get other websites to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta section – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the site’s 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 sites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Social Share, Links, or Keep In Touch toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Social Share, or Follow Us toolbar section)
4) You can also view your RSS feed by simply 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 website or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …
(Feed entries viewed on Firefox browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(RSS entries displayed 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 RSS Feed section in the Reading Settings section. Select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WP Reading Settings – Syndication feed items)
The feed section will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will show 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
Another setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just a summary …
(WordPress 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 a feed displays)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website whose content you want to subscribe to and search for an RSS feed link …
(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other sites to your site.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content sourced from an RSS feed 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 site and copy the RSS feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now appear on 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 Add RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to posts? Yes, it can!
You can do this using plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
Here are a number of auto blogging plugins for WordPress that let you automatically add new with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with additional functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin lets you automatically combine and display content from various content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all tablets, phones, and computers and supports text in every language.
The premium plugin edition contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually 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 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, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible syndication 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 bring together all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)
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 WP Plugin)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Use RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts.
To inspect your comments feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries viewed on Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image Source: 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using RSS Feeds For Individual Items
Being able to display an RSS feed for single post items 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 using 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 add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain topics. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
With WordPress, you can create individual category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(Feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category feed format)
The feed will now only display content published in this 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 – Publish Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds
You can provide your own directory of RSS feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like the larger online publishers do …
(Publish Your Own List Of RSS Feeds For Your Subscribers)
All you need to do is link an image to your category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. 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 inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts here:
RSS Feeds – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure various feed types without code editing skills. Here are some examples of feed formats you can display on your site and how to structure the feeds …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for specific posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/09/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/07/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed that includes 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 users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Place a subscribe link or button somewhere visible …
(Encourage your site users to subscribe to your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if the information that you provide on your site is useful, informative, or highly entertaining. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add content to your site and get online users to syndicate your content using 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 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- RSS Buttons – Visit an online resource site like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS images”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and reference. Visit this site for additional information about feeds in WordPress.
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 display content from other websites and blogs on your site using RSS.
Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WordPress content publishing platform please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com