No matter what what industry you are in, providing quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if you provide medical services, it’s not a bad idea to include useful information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of data, check your facts, write and edit 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 is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your users with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Does RSS Mean?
- RSS, which, according to some is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the content and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, videos, etc., to which other users can choose to subscribe.
- You can read an RSS feed with programs called RSS feed readers, or feed aggregators. Feed readers can be used to find new content published on websites and distribute this content online.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom 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, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from multiple sites.
This guide explains how to find your WordPress RSS feed, 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) way to share web content. Feeds provide a simple and easy way for web users to keep up with the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many news reporting agencies and many leading online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from news agencies around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers global stories and the most recent news items from all over the globe without actually having to post more reporters everywhere in the world …
(News reporting agencies and popular online media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. online media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by news publishing agencies to share information with other publications)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally created theoriginally created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web traffic.
Most news reporting agencies and major content sites will have a feed section (look for links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “times of india rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news reporting agencies and major content sites contain an RSS feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content areas of the site …
(A site’s directory of RSS feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also contain subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use an RSS feed is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s site additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
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 websites to syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more visitors …
(Consider trying to get users to syndicate your content … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a few ways to access the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a navigation menu …
(Your feed will show as many recent items you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other 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 …
(Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’ options)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content displays)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is 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 show you how this works.
First, find a website whose content you want to subscribe to and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link. 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 RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content for humans.
Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as 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 …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area)
copy the feed URL from a website that publishes content that you would like to add to your site to your clipboard …
(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 site in your browser. The content will now display in the sidebar (or wherever you have placed 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 RSS Feeds To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? It sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ section)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for help with plugin configuration.
The plugins listed below are useful for adding feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
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 organize them according to categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator – WordPress Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with extended functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is a feature-filled importer that lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you syndicate, import, curate, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress site.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full article content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
This plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any phone, tablet, or computer and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of POWr contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)
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 other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export 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 is a versatile syndication plugin 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 your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev Plugin)
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 your feed URL, give your feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies the default WordPress RSS feed to include pages in addition to 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 displaying RSS feeds of your posts.
To access these comments, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen on a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. 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 site is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing RSS Feeds For Individual Items
Being able to select 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 making an RSS feed for an individual post item is shown below:
(Individual Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of your post URI, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in syndicating content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(WordPress category feed format)
Copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
Now, add “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
The category RSS feed will now only display content posted in that category …
(Category-specific 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 An RSS Feeds Directory
You can provide an RSS feeds page that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Set Up A Directory Of Feeds For Visitors)
You can link an icon to category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a new page …
(RSS image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about adding tables to WordPress pages and posts, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
You can customize feeds in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of different feed types without editing code. For example, the table below lists some of the kinds of feed types you can display …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments published on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on a single post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/12/21/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/07/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed containing latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ button or link in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that online users will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content from other sites and get other users to syndicate your content using 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 Resources:
- RSS Feed Icons – Visit sites like www.feedicons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – Official WordPress documentation. Go here to learn more about using 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 add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)