No matter what product or service you sell or what industry your business is a part of, you need to provide high-value information to your site or blog users. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, it’s a good idea to provide users with the latest information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax deductions, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, is very time-consuming. You have to sort through, research, and organize a ton of information, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure 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 simpler way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “web feed”.
- After a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will constantly monitor the site and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog entries, news headlines, audios, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- RSS feeds can be read with software programs called feed readers, or aggregators. Feedreaders can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content to other sites.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom 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, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from multiple websites.
This guide 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 someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple way to receive the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at syndication.
Online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news from news sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows many content publishers and influential media publications to deliver readers interesting stories and the latest headlines from around the globe without having to hire and send additional staff and reporters everywhere around the world …
(Global media publications use syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies around the globe.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share content with other publications)
Most websites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Most digital news publishers and major online media publications provide links to an RSS 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”, “courier rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Major content sites provide links to an RSS feed section. Image: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS Feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These RSS feed items give you access to content from different areas of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
An RSS feed directory can also include subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: A feed is just a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is copy the URLs and paste these into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
The Benefits Of Syndicating Content
Adding someone else’s content to your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to 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 Business 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 syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get other online users to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
Overview Of The WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a few ways to get the WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in your navigation menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links and/or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On many sites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Links, or Share toolbar …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Social Share, Stay In Touch, or Links toolbar section)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s RSS feed by simply 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 subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your site’s feed page …
(Feed items viewed on Firefox)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on which browser you are using …
(RSS content viewed on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many items you would like displayed in your Feeds page, go to your Reading Settings section and enter the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication items field)
The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified section …
(The feed page will show as many recent posts as you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles in your feed as full text, or just a summary …
(WP Settings – Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts affect how a feed displays)
If you need help WordPress Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s see how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and look for their RSS feed icon …
(Look for an RSS feed 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 what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
Adding Feeds To WordPress
In the example below, we are going to add content from another site’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you could display on your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS feed. You can use RSS feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook 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 your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website containing content that you want to display on your sidebar …
(Copy the feed URL)
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 using sidebar widgets, go here:
Load your site in your browser. The content can now be seen in the 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 RSS Feeds To Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar?
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on WordPress.org plugin directory for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ screen – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “auto blog” (An autoblog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers extended functionality with a number of premium extensions (add-ons).
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Post Importer allows you to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin)
The POWr RSS Feed plugin automatically combines and displays content from various content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in every language.
The premium edition of POWr contains many additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/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 WP Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a flexible 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.
You can use this FeedWordPress to create aggregator site (sites that display posts from multiple sources), or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(Autoblog by WPMUDev 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 the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types modifies the default WordPress RSS feed to include pages and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to displaying feeds of your latest posts, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
To view these, go to the ‘Meta’ section on your sidebar menu (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content displayed using a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feed reader to view the content. Image 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 WordPress site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Specific Item RSS Feeds
Being able to display an RSS feed for a specific post 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 displaying an RSS feed for specific posts is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Single Post)
To create the above feed, copy the post URI, 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 for your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog contains content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily create a separate RSS feed for each category.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(RSS feed format for post categories)
Copy the category link address …
(Copy the selected category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(WP category feed format)
Your category feed will now only contain content specific to that category …
(Category 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 A Feeds List
You can create your own directory of RSS feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Create Your Own RSS Feeds Directory)
All you need to do is link an RSS button graphic like the one shown below to your category (or specific post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS graphic. Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress, see this tutorial:
RSS – Notes
Feeds can be customized in several 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 types that do not require editing code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can use and how to format the feeds …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – Feed that 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 blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed that includes individual posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed that includes the latest comments made on a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/11/21/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Feed that includes the latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
Remember to promote your feeds. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link or button in a visible location …
(Encourage visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get visitors to subscribe to your content with 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 🙂
Resources:
- RSS Images – Visit online resource sites like Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “RSS buttons”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and reference. Go here to learn more about using RSS 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 someone else’s content on your site using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To learn more about the benefits of using the WordPress software please click on links to visit other great articles and tutorials on this site.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)