No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, you need to provide high-quality information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, and engages your readers. For example, if your business provides insurance services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance advice, etc.
The problem with providing this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of information sifting, 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 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 well beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is an easier way to continually provide your site readers with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your users with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What You Need To Know
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the site and keep feed subscribers updated.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, videos, etc., to which any user can choose to subscribe.
- 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, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on sites that publish feeds and then view updates posted on these sites through a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different aggregators. 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 applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from multiple sources.
In this detailed article, we will explain 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 websites and blogs to your site via their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing content online. Feeds provide web users with a way to keep up with the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Most online newspapers and popular online publications use syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows digital news publishers to deliver readers stories from all over the planet without having to post additional news staff to every place around the world …
(Global media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their news stories using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds)
Most sites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also drive 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.
Many digital content publishing agencies and leading online media publications have an RSS feed section (look for links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many content publishers and major online media publications have a feed section. Source: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds directory. Image: New York Times RSS)
These feed items give readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: LA Times RSS)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All that’s required to use the feed is to copy the URL and paste it into an application that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s website or blog on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s website, it also adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
While adding an RSS feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other websites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other sites syndicate content using your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Try to get other websites and blogs to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
Overview Of The WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your theme, there are a few ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in your Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts affect how your feeds will display)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL 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 whose content you want to syndicate and look for a ‘subscribe’ button …
(Search for an RSS feed button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Site
In the example below, we’ll add RSS content from another site to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily add to your site the latest updates 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 like news, social media comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website containing content that you would like to add to your site …
(Copy your feed URL to your clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your browser. The content should display on the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(RSS Feed Content Added To WordPress 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:
Adding Content From RSS Feeds To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts instead of a sidebar? It sure can!
You can do this using plugins. Just search inside your Plugins screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a number of auto blogging tools that allow you to create posts using RSS feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension is a popular, feature-filled importer that lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, syndicate, curate, 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 full article content of every item in your feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, borders, fonts, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
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 many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress.
As stated in the FeedWordPress site …
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 of your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev WordPress Plugin)
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 the URL of your feed, 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 Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
You can inspect this by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content displayed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed entries seen using a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Specific Item RSS Feeds
Being able to select 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 accessing an RSS feed for an individual post is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post URL, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the category URL …
(Copy the category link address to your clipboard …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress post categories feed)
Your category RSS feed will now only display content specific to 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 – Provide Your Own RSS Feeds Directory
You can publish your own feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to specific content …
(Set Up A Page Of Feeds For Subscribers)
Link an RSS graphic to each category feed URL and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress content, see this step-by-step tutorial:
WordPress RSS – Notes
You can customize feeds in various different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats without messing with code. Here are some examples of feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS 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 website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for a single post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on specific post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2018/11/26/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: RSS feed containing latest items for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest posts 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 promote your RSS feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content to your site and get online users to syndicate 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 🙂
Additional Resources:
- Feed Icons – Visit an online resource site like Feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Visit this site to learn more about RSS 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 on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please see our related posts section.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now