No matter what service or product your business sells, providing high-value information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if your business provides medical services, you may want to publish useful information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a lot of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually up-to-date. As you can imagine, this not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your users up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the simplest ways to provide your site visitors with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some is short for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, video lists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be viewed with software programs called feedreaders, or aggregators. Aggregators are used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content online.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and 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 applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from multiple websites.
This comprehensive article explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 their RSS feed.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way of sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide a way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Media publications use content syndication to publish stories from content sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers interesting stories and the most recent headlines from all around the planet without having to set up additional reporters all around the world …
(Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources all around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately. online media publications syndicate content using feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows valuable information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Major sites will include an RSS feed section (look for menu 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.) …
(Leading news reporting agencies will have an RSS feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content sections of the site …
(A site’s directory of feeds. Image: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to different areas of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)
A feed list can also contain feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds – Benefits
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s business, it also adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Using RSS Feeds Has Many Benefits!)
While adding RSS feeds 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 sites to use your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your content, you have the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Consider trying to get visitors to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
About Your WordPress RSS Feed
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 the WP 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 be displayed on your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying 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 WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow Us, Links, or Social Share section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Share, or Follow section)
4) You can also view your WordPress 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 site is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS …
(Feed entries seen on a Firefox browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(RSS items seen with a Google Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many posts you want to display in your RSS page, by going to your Reading Settings section and typing the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
The feed will show as many recent items you have specified section …
(The 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
Another setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or just a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds will appear)
If you need help using 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 to your clipboard and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and search for their RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ link or 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 the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another site to your WordPress site.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, 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 RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website or blog containing content that you want to add to your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, go to your Widgets section and paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed will now display on the sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(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 Content From RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of your sidebar?
You can do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are a number of plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your pages and posts:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WordPress posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all computers, tablets, and phones and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication 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 your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
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, give your 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 WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes 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:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying feeds of your posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
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 and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed content as seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. 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 subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Single Post RSS Feeds
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 posts to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for creating an RSS feed for single posts is shown below:
(Feed For Individual Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments associated with your post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds
Some your site users may only want to subscribe to content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog contains content published under a number of categories, WordPress allows you to easily provide a separate RSS feed for each of these categories.
Just use the format shown below:
(RSS feed format for category)
Copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WP post categories feed)
Your RSS feed will now only contain content posted under that 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 – Create Your Own RSS Feeds Directory
You can publish your own page of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large online publishers …
(Create A List Of Feeds)
You can also link an image like the one shown below to category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
For a detailed tutorial on adding tables to WordPress content, go here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
You can customize feeds in several ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations that do not require messing with code. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can create …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments published on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that contains a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed containing the latest comments made on a post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed displaying the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/01/30/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/05/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest items 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 …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe button or link somewhere visible …
(Encourage your visitors to syndicate your feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add someone else’s content and get other users to share 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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Download RSS Graphics – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logos”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS icons.
- 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 the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds – Official WordPress documentation repository. Go here for more information about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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 RSS.
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 using WordPress for a business website please see other great articles and tutorials we have published on this site.
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