No matter what what industry you are a part of, providing high-value information to your site users is important. For example, if your business provides medical services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to do a ton of information sifting, researching and organizing, fact-checking, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually kept 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 well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much easier way to provide your users with expert, up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your subscribers with the latest information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Is It?
- 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 called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for content updates. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog post items, news, audios, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- RSS feed content can be viewed using software programs called feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders are used to find content on all different kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to other online properties.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. 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 that feeds are compatible with different machines, feed readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates from multiple sources.
This article shows you 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 using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate method used to share content online. Feeds provide an easy way for online users to receive the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
News reporting agencies use content syndication to publish stories from content sources around the world.
Syndication allows leading online newspapers to deliver readers global stories and the most recent news headlines from all around the globe without having to send more news reporters and content writers to every location around the world …
(Media publications use syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing information. Digital news publishers syndicate their newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their content. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate significant web traffic.
Most online newspapers and major content sites include 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”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many digital content publishing agencies and major online media publications provide links to an RSS feed section. Source: SMH )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds list. Image Source: NY Times)
These feeds let readers access information from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, entertainment news, health news, etc.)
A feed list can also contain further subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you have to do 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 Syndicating Content
Syndicating content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content and helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(Syndicating Content Has Many Benefits!)
While adding 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 syndicate your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get other websites to syndicate your feed … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress RSS – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed on your sidebar, 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 or buttons on certain WordPress themes that let your visitors copy your feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by right-clicking and copying on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On many sites and again, depending on the theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Social Share, or Links section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Stay In Touch, Share, or Link To Us section)
4) You can also view your WordPress 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 WordPress installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS page …
(RSS items displayed on Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Feed entries displayed with a Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many entries you would like to show in your RSS section, go to your Reading Settings section and type in the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items setting)
Your feed will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section …
(The feed will show the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or just a summary …
(WordPress Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content appears …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed will display)
We have written a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view a feed’s content, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for their RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ 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 what the feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other websites to your WordPress site.
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily display on 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 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 content from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the feed URL from a website or blog that publishes content that you want to add to your site …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content can now be seen on the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been added – e.g. custom menu) …
(RSS Feed Added To Sidebar Menu)
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:
Adding RSS Feed Content To Your Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are a number of auto blogging plugins for WordPress that let you automatically create posts using feeds and imported content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico WP Plugin)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds that you choose.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange feeds according to campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging plugin for WordPress with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you import RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full text RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
With POWr RSS, you can combine and display content from multiple sources using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium version of this plugin 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 features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn, export WordPress posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible syndication 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 site (sites that display posts from different sources), or display all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (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 – WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages 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
In addition to displaying RSS feeds of your posts, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
To view this, locate the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content displayed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries as seen on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 website or blog has been installed in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Specific Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for single post items can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for using an RSS feed for a specific 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 a post, WordPress will return the comments associated with that post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog publishes content under multiple categories, you can offer readers a separate RSS feed for each of these categories.
All you need to do is use the format shown below:
(WP RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category feed format)
The category feed now only displays content posted in this 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 An RSS Feeds Page
You can provide an RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Publish Your Own Directory Of Feeds For Visitors)
Link an image to each feed URL and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS icon. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress posts, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize your feeds in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed types without editing code. For example, here are some of the kinds of custom feeds you can use and how to structure your feeds …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Contains the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed that includes individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/02/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed displaying the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains latest items 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. Place a subscribe buttons in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you publish useful information that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, you must provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add great content to your site and get online users to syndicate your content using RSS feeds!)
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:
- RSS Feed Images – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download Free RSS images and icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and information repository. Visit this site for more information about using WordPress feeds.
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 someone else’s content on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you 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 the benefits of using the WP CMS platform please see our related posts section.
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