No matter what your business sells or what industry you belong to, providing high-quality information to your site visitors is vitally important. For example, if you provide travel services, you may want to provide users with the latest information from government departments and foreign travel offices, such as news or updates on travel warnings, advice from consulates, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, takes a lot of work and expertise. You have to sift through, research, and organize a lot of data, 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 kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves 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 users up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Useful Information
- RSS, which, according to some definitions stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to now as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- After users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers automatically updated.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, news, audios, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be viewed with a software program called an RSS feed reader, or aggregator. Aggregators are used to find content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to other sites.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feedreaders. 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 compatibility with different machines, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine many RSS feeds to receive news and updates from various sources.
In this article, we show you where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with an easy way to keep up with the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
News reporting agencies rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows news publishing agencies to deliver readers global stories and up-to-the-minute newsworthy items from all over the planet without actually having to post more news reporting and content writing departments everywhere in the world …
(Media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate their newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Content publishing agencies syndicate their stories using news feeds)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their content. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Major sites contain an RSS feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “miami herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many online newspapers and major sites provide links to a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, travel news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: Los Angeles Times)
Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(Using RSS Feeds)
While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site without having to create it, 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 gain increased exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Get users to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on the sidebar or footer, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Access your WordPress RSS feed from the Meta section)
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 feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on your theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow Us, Links, or Social Share toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Subscribe, Links, or Share 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS feed …
(RSS content seen on Firefox browser)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS content seen on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you would like to show in your RSS Feed page in the Reading Settings section. Select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication items)
Your feed section will show the number of items you have specified section …
(Your 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 the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds display)
If you need help using Post excerpts in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of a feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon. 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 feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds and convert these into readable content for humans.
How To Add Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to yours.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can easily add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing 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 your sidebar)
First, Go to a website or blog that publishes content that you would like to display on your site and copy its feed URL …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your Widgets area and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen on the sidebar …
(RSS Feed Added To 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:
How To Add RSS Feed Content To Your WordPress Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to posts? You sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside the Plugins section for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
Here are a number of plugins you can check out that let you add RSS feeds to your pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is an advanced, feature-rich importer that allows you to add content to your site automatically 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 Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer 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)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin allows you to automatically combine content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, phones, and tablets and supports text in any language.
The premium version of POWr contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you 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 posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options for WordPress site-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 sites, or bring together all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog – WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you would like to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your posts.
You can view the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section …
(Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items viewed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(Comments feed items seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: 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 site is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Displaying Feeds For Single Posts
Being able to access 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 accessing an RSS feed for a specific post is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of a post URL, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog publishes content under a number of categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate RSS feed for each different category.
Just use the format below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category link address to your clipboard …
(Copy your category URL …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress post categories feed)
The category RSS feed now only includes content published in this 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 – Provide A List Of Feeds On Your Site
You can set up an RSS feeds directory that allows your readers to subscribe to content in the categories that interest them, just like the larger authoritative sites do …
(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds List)
All you need to do is link an RSS image like the one shown below to category (or single post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a new page …
(RSS button. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial on creating tables in WordPress posts and pages here:
WordPress RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in several ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed types that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of feed types you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that displays the latest comments left on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing a single post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed that contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/02/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed displaying the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed that displays latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your feeds. Place a subscribe link or button in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide great content that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content to your site and get visitors to share your content online with 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 🙂
Resources:
- Feed Icons – Visit sites like www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss buttons”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing RSS specifications, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and broadening general public understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference site. Go here for more information about using WordPress RSS feeds.
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 someone else’s content to your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about using the WordPress software please see other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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