No matter what service or product you sell, providing high-value information to your blog readers is important. For example, if your business provides travel-related services, it’s not a bad idea to publish useful information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, tips from consulates, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure 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 completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much simpler way to provide your readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your site readers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly known, Really Simple Syndication. It is also often called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically check the website for content updates. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the site and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are also used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog entries, news, audio lists, etc., to which users can then subscribe.
- You can read RSS feeds using a software-based program called an RSS reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders are used to access content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content to other online properties.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP 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, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates from many different sources.
In this article, we will show you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing content online. Feeds provide an easy way for web users to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers global stories and the latest newsworthy content from all over the planet without having to set up additional news reporting departments everywhere in the world …
(Media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from news sources all around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information)
Most websites actually want you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Major content sites have a feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “nz herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites will contain an RSS feed section. Image: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections of the site …
(RSS directory. Source: New York Times RSS)
gives readers access to different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, entertainment news, science news, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also contain feed subcategories …
(Feed sections can also include feed subcategories. Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use an RSS feed, all that’s required is to copy the URL and paste it into an application that can translate the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
RSS Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s content, it also helps your site by freeing you up from having to create that 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 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 and blogs syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(It’s a good idea to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS Feed – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed as part of your navigation menu, just 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 links and buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on which theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Social Share, Link To Us, or Stay In Touch toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Links, Follow, or Share toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s RSS feed by 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 subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS page …
(Feed items viewed on a Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS content as seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you would like to display in your Feeds page, go to your Reading Settings section and type in the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items setting)
The feed will display the number of items you have specified section …
(Your feed will display as many recent posts as 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 as full text, or just a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content displays)
If you need help using WordPress Post excerpts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all that’s required to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button. Image source: http://www.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 URL of your feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
Adding Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from another website’s RSS feeds to your site.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you could easily display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding 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 RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Find a website containing content that you would like to add to your sidebar and copy its RSS feed to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL to the clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen in your sidebar (or wherever you have added 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 Feed Content To Your WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from RSS feeds to posts instead of the sidebar?
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside the Plugins admin screen for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ screen)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us for assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins listed below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is an advanced, feature-rich importer that allows you to 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 syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed – WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS lets you automatically combine and display content from multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom backgrounds, fonts, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, computer, or phone and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin version contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin)
The RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin lets you display pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your posts.
You can access your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(Comments feed items displayed on a Google Chrome browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feedreader 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 WP installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Accessing Feeds For Single Posts
Being able to select an RSS feed for specific posts can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS directories, 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:
(Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the post, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content about specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
The RSS feed now only displays content posted in this particular category …
(Category 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 – Create Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can provide your own RSS feeds page that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large websites …
(Set Up Your Own Feeds Directory)
Link an RSS image to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a new page …
(RSS button graphic. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress posts, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows different feed configurations without code editing skills. Here are some examples of custom feeds you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that includes your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments posted on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that includes a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that contains the latest comments made on individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Feed displaying the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/03/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed that displays latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to promote your feeds. Make sure you place a subscribe button or link in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your visitors with very high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content to your site and get other sites to share 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 feed 🙂
RSS – Resources:
- RSS Feed Icons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS icon”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing RSS specifications, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and broadening the public understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – Official WordPress documentation. Visit this site for additional information about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know where 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 using RSS.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business web site please see other great content on this site.
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