No matter what service or product you provide or what industry your business is a part of, it’s important to provide high-quality information on your site or blog that better educates, informs, and engages your readers. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to publish information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a lot of data, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit 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 huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is completely beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a much easier way to provide your users with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your site visitors with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS Made Simple
- RSS, which, according to some experts is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that subscribers can read it without having to keep revisiting their site to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog post items, news headlines, video lists, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- RSS feeds can be viewed with a software called a feed reader, or aggregator. Feedreaders are used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content to various online properties.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed readers. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also let you combine several RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from many sites.
This article explains where your RSS feed is located, 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.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful and legitimate way of sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide a way for online users to keep up with the latest information posted on different sites.
First, let’s take a look at content syndication.
Global media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish content from content sources around the world.
Content syndication allows most leading digital agencies to deliver readers stories and news from all over the globe without actually having to employ and set up more reporters and writers everywhere around the world …
(Most online newspapers and popular online media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share information legitimately. online media publications syndicate content using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share information with other news publications)
Most websites actually would like you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also send visitors back to the original site responsible for creating and publishing the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major sites have a feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say “RSS” 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.) …
(Major sites contain a feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS directory. Source: nytimes.com)
Each of these feed items allows readers to access content from different sections of the website (e.g. business news, sports news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. To use the feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Content Syndication
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s site additional exposure online and helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 sites to syndicate your content.
When other websites syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to gain more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get visitors to syndicate content using your feed … it will help to increase traffic!)
WordPress RSS Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display in a standard or custom menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find links and/or buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some sites and again, depending on your WordPress site’s theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Subscribe, Link To Us, or Social Share section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Links, or Subscribe toolbar section)
4) You can also view your WordPress RSS feed by typing your site’s URL into a web browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your website or blog has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your WordPress RSS feed page …
(RSS items as seen with Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you use …
(RSS feed items seen with Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you would like to show in your RSS Feed 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 …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section …
(The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in the WP 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 posts in your feed as full text, or a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed will display)
If you need help using Post excerpts in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, all you need to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and search for a ’subscribe to feed’ button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS 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 feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS feeds.
Adding Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add RSS content from another website to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could easily display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding their RSS feed. You can use RSS 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 sourced from an RSS feed to your sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, go to a website that publishes content that you would like to add to your site and copy its RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
Next, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content can now be seen 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:
Adding Feeds To Your 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 inside your Plugins section for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for configuration instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
Here are a few autoblogging plugins for WordPress that allow you to automatically add posts using RSS feeds and imported content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers additional functionality with premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post add-on allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer)
The RSS Post Importer plugin lets you import, syndicate, curate, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With POWr RSS Feed, you can automatically combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of this plugin contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication options for WordPress content.
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.
You can use this FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the feed a name (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
By default, WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed. Use RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of your latest post comments.
You can view the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget of your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content displayed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed with a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. 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 website or blog is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Single Post Feeds
Being able to use an RSS feed for single post items 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 specific post items is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, 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 web address of your post, WordPress will return the comments for your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content from specific categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
Just use the format below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And add “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress category RSS feed format)
Your category feed will now only include content published under 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 Your Own Directory Of RSS Feeds On Your Site
You can create your own list of feeds on your site that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like large authoritative sites …
(Create An RSS Feeds Directory)
All you need to do is link a button like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button image. Image: public-domain-photos.com)
To learn more about adding tables to WordPress pages and posts, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure various feed types that do not require editing code. Here are some examples of feed formats you can create …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Includes your latest posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that displays the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/07/19/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Includes latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains the latest posts 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 let your users know that they can subscribe to your feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ buttons in a visible location …
(Encourage your site users to syndicate your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get other users to share your content online 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 – Additional Resources:
- Download RSS Icons – Visit Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable Free RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and furthering the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and information site. Visit this site for more information about using WordPress RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you improve your business online. To learn more about using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit other great content on this site.
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com