No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, providing quality information to your blog readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide medical services, it’s not a bad idea to include information from the health department, such as news and updates on medical research, health and fitness tips, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a ton 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 not only involves a lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is well beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with great information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the simplest way to provide your site visitors with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Useful Information
- RSS, which, according to some definitions stands for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known now as Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- When users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news headlines, audios, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- You can view an RSS feed using software called RSS readers, or feed aggregators. Aggregators are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content online.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feed aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) 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 allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from various websites.
In this comprehensive article, we show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site using RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. Feeds provide web users with a simple way to keep up with the latest information published on different sites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies to deliver readers interesting stories and the most recent headlines from all around the planet without having to set up more news reporting departments everywhere in the world …
(Media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share newsworthy content legitimately. News publishers syndicate their news stories using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share information with other publications)
Most sites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Many digital news publishing agencies and major sites contain an RSS 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”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many news reporting agencies and major content sites will contain an RSS feed section. Source: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS feeds list. Image: nytimes.com)
gives readers access to content from different sections of the site (e.g. business news, travel news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategory feeds …
(Feed sections can also contain feed subcategories. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use feeds, all you have to do is copy the URLs and paste these into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your site has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s business and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Using RSS Feeds - Benefits)
While adding an RSS feed 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 sites syndicate your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Try to get other online users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress Feed – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on the theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on your sidebar …
(The feed will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in the Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(WP Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how your feed content will appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using Post excerpts in WordPress here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for their RSS feed button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ button. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into readable content.
How To Add RSS Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content from other site’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.
Adding A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, social media comments, 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 your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website or blog containing content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content will now show on the sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been inserted – e.g. footer, custom menu, etc) …
(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 Feed Content To Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can do this using plugins. Search inside your Plugins admin screen (Plugins > Add New) for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.
The plugins listed below are useful if you would like to add feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An auto blog 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 RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize feeds into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WordPress posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin allows you to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes 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)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust feed spacing and size, use custom colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium version contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin For WordPress)
The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to new levels.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress)
FeedWordPress provides versatile Atom/RSS 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.
You can use this plugin to create aggregator site (sites that bring together content from multiple sources), or bring together all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog by WPMUDev WordPress Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, give the 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)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you would like to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
Using RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts.
To inspect this feed, locate the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items seen with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed content viewed with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: 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 – Individual Item Feeds
Being able to create an RSS feed for a single post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for using an RSS feed for individual post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, 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 actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users 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 category feeds.
All you have to do is use the format below:
(WP RSS feed format for post categories)
Select and copy the category URL …
(Select and copy your category URL …)
Add the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
Your RSS feed now only contains content posted in that particular category …
(Category-specific 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 – Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can set up your own directory of RSS feeds for subscribers that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Set Up Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)
You can also link an image to category (or specific post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all your individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have created a detailed tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress here:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
You can customize RSS in a number of ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of feed formats that do not require editing code. Here are some examples of feeds you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Types)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the diagram above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – RSS feed that displays the latest comments posted on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Feed that displays the latest comments made on individual post entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/12/23/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Feed containing latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/06/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed containing latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to let your visitors know that they can subscribe to your feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ button image in a visible location …
(Remember to make your RSS feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if your information is useful, informative, or highly engaging. In other words, focus on providing your visitors with high-quality information 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 using WordPress and 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 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- RSS Feed Images – Visit a site like Iconspedia or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and links to resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org – WordPress documentation and information repository. Go here 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 add someone else’s content to your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, this information has given you 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 using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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