No matter what service or product you provide, it’s important to provide quality information on your site or blog that educates, informs, or improves engagement with your readers. For example, if your business provides insurance-related services, it’s a good idea to include useful information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical research, insurance advice, etc.

To create and publish this type of information, however, takes an enormous amount of work and expertise. You have to do a ton of information gathering, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, content writing and editing (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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the easiest ways to provide your readers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

RSS – Basic Definition

• RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred to, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content to save readers time from having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
• Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news, music playlists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
• Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes full or summarized text along with metadata like date of publishing, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then view any updates posted on these sites using an RSS feed reader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to automatically syndicate their web content.
• Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices, readers, and programs.
• Many sites and software applications also let you combine different RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from a number of sites.

In this detailed article, we will show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a very powerful method used for sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with a simple way to receive the latest information published on sites they are interested in.

First, let’s take a look at syndication.

Media publications rely on syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies around the world.

Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers stories on all kinds of topics from all over the planet without having to hire more content writers in every location around the world …

(News reporting agencies and many influential online media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources around the planet.)

Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing information. Global media publications syndicate their information using feeds …

(News reporting agencies syndicate content using news feeds)

Most sites actually would like you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also drive 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.

Leading news agencies include a feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …

(Many online newspapers and major content sites include a 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 sections of the site …

(RSS Feeds. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

gives readers access to different sections of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further feed subdirectories …

(RSS Feed section. Source: LA Times RSS)

Note: An RSS feed is simply a URL. All that’s required to use an RSS feed is copy the URL and paste it into software that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

The Benefits Of Using Feeds

Adding content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s business, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …

(Content Syndication Benefits Someone Else’s Website And Yours!)

While adding feeds 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 websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …

(It’s worth trying to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)

WordPress RSS Feed – About

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing others to easily syndicate your content on their websites.

Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to access the WordPress RSS feed:

1) If your theme displays the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …

(The feed will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

The other setting in the WP Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles as full text, or just as a summary …

(WP 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 a feed will display)

We have created a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:

• Using Post Excerpts In WordPress

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s take a look at how this works.

First, go to 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)

If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: http://feedreader.com/online)

Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.

How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site

In the example below, we’ll add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to yours.

Adding An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar

As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is in, you could easily add to your site the latest content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, social media updates, 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 or blog containing content that you would like to display on your sidebar to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

Next, go to Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into an RSS widget …

(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)

To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets On The Sidebar

Load your site in your web browser. The content will now show on your sidebar …

(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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

Adding Content From RSS Feeds To Posts

What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of the sidebar?

You can easily do this using plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.

(’Add Plugins’ search results)

Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.

Here are a number of autoblogging plugins that let you automatically add new using RSS feeds:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)

WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds according to categories and campaigns.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer – WordPress Plugin)

RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, import, syndicate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress site.

RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a standalone post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)

With POWr RSS, you can automatically combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom backgrounds, fonts, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in all languages.

The premium version contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts, and more.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin)

WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.

This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress)

FeedWordPress is a versatile 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 site (sites that display content from multiple sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin

Autoblog by WPMUDev

(Autoblog by WPMUDev WordPress Plugin)

Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog by WPMUDev – WordPress Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages WP Plugin)

The RSS Includes Pages plugin modifies RSS feeds to include pages and not just posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages Plugin

WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds

In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your post comments.

You can view this by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section …

(WordPress Comments RSS)

All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …

(Comments feed entries seen using Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …

(Comments feed items displayed on a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …

(Paste the comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Using Individual Post RSS Feeds

Being able to display an RSS feed for a single 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 a specific post is shown below:

(Individual Post 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 append “/feed” to the end of the web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on your post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Post Category RSS Feeds

Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content about specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.

If your website displays content published under several categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate RSS feed for each post category.

All you need to do is use the format shown below:

(Format for WP post categories feed)

Select and copy the category URL …

(Select and copy your category URL …)

Now, add “feed” to the end of it …

(Format for WP category RSS feed)

Your feed now only displays content specific to that particular 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 An RSS Feeds Page

You can create your own RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large authoritative sites …

(Set Up Your Own Page Of RSS Feeds For Visitors)

Link an RSS graphic to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of all your individual feeds on a separate page …

(RSS button. Image: public-domain-photos.com)

We have created a detailed tutorial about adding tables to WordPress here:

• How To Easily Create And Insert Tables Into WordPress Pages And Posts

WordPress RSS – Additional Notes

RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.

WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations without code editing skills. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can display …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments left on your website or blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed for specific posts
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: RSS Feed containing the latest comments made on a post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Includes the latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/09/12/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – Includes latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/09/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Contains latest post entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Feed displaying the latest entries for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: Feed containing 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 feed. Place your subscribe buttons somewhere visible …

(Encourage your site users to syndicate your feeds!)

Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if you publish great content that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.

(Easily add content to your site and get other sites to subscribe to your content online using RSS feeds!)

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 🙂

Additional RSS Resources:

• Feed Images – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS images and icons.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about RSS.
• WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and reference repository. Go here for more information about using WordPress and RSS.

Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other sites on your site using 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 learn more about the benefits of using the WP web content management platform please see our related posts section.

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