No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, providing high-value information to your blog readers is important. For example, if you provide accounting services, you may want to provide users with useful information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it involves a great deal of effort and expertise. You have to do a lot of information gathering, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, content writing and editing (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 beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is an easier way to regularly provide your site visitors with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your site visitors with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – A Basic Overview
- RSS, which, according to some experts is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS allows content publishers to automatically syndicate their content so that their site readers can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, video lists, etc., to which other users can choose to subscribe.
- You can view the content of an RSS feed with software programs called RSS feed readers, or aggregators. Feed readers can be used to access new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and updates made to the content) to other online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed readers. 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 compatibility with different devices, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to display news and updates from different sources.
This in-depth article shows you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites on your site using their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful method used for sharing web content. Feeds provide web users with an easy way to receive the latest information posted on sites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at the concept of content syndication.
Online newspapers and influential online publications use content syndication to publish news from news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories from all over the planet without having to hire more news staff in every place around the world …
(Most digital news agencies rely on syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Global media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Digital agencies syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Major content sites contain 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”, “huffington post rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many online newspapers and leading online media publications contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image: New York Times RSS)
gives you access to different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, travel news, science news, etc.)
A feed directory can also include further subcategories …
(Feed sections can also include subcategory feeds. Image: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All that’s required to use a feed is copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s website and helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 sites to use your content.
When other websites syndicate your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Get other websites and blogs to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(The feed page will display the number of items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article in a feed as full text, or just a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will display)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you need to do to view the content of a feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for an RSS feed section …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button. Image source: http://www.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 what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress
In the example below, we’ll add content from other websites to your WordPress site.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing content from their RSS feed. You can use RSS 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 content sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, go to a site containing content that you want to add to your sidebar and copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
To learn more about using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content can now be seen in the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been placed) …
(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
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts instead of the sidebar?
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some autoblogging plugins that let you create posts with feeds:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange them according to campaigns and categories.
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 that offers additional functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is an advanced importer that lets you import RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full article content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from a number of different RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom backgrounds, colors, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium version of POWr contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
WP Pipes 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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, 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)
FeedWordPress is a versatile syndication plugin for WordPress site content.
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 bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just 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:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.
You can view your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items as seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed items displayed using a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(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 website or blog is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Single Item Feeds
Being able to access an RSS feed for single posts 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 accessing an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(Specific Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/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 made 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 from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If you publish content under several categories, WordPress allows you to easily provide a separate feed for each category.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(RSS feed format for category)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
And add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Use this format for WordPress category RSS feed)
Your feed now only displays content published under that category …
(Category 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 – Publish An RSS Feeds List
You can set up your own list of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories, just like large websites …
(Provide A Directory Of Feeds On Your Site)
Link a button image to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
We have written a detailed tutorial about creating tables in WordPress content here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
You can customize RSS in various different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of feed types you can use …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments left on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed that includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/10/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed containing latest items 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 users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your subscribe links somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your visitors with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get others to syndicate your content with WordPress and RSS!)
If you need help coming up with content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Additional Resources:
- RSS Feed Graphics – Visit FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation repository. Go here to learn more about using WordPress and 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 display content from other websites and blogs on your site via RSS.
Hopefully, now you have 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 the WordPress CMS platform please see our related posts section.
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