No matter what your business sells or what industry you are a part of, you need to provide high-value information on your site or blog that educates, informs, or improves engagement with your visitors. For example, if your business provides medical services, it’s not a bad idea to publish useful information from the health department, such as news or updates on medical research, health and fitness advice, etc.
To create and publish this type of information, however, involves an enormous amount of work and expertise. You have to do a lot of data sorting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, content writing and editing (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 not only involves a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your site visitors with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS, which, according to some definitions is short for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- Once a user subscribes to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically visit and check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the feed and keep subscribers updated.
- Feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, audio lists, etc., which users can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML document that includes either full or summarized text along with other metadata such as date of publishing, author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse any updates posted on these sites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate content automatically.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine multiple RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from many different sites.
In this guide, you are going to learn where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add content from other websites to your site using RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. Feeds provide online users with an easy way to receive the latest information posted on sites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Online media publications rely on content syndication to publish news from news sources around the world.
Syndication allows online newspapers and highly-visited online publications to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news and stories from around the planet without having to employ and set up additional news reporting and content writing teams everywhere around the world …
(Media publications rely on content syndication to publish newsworthy stories from news sources around the planet.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately. Global media publications syndicate their information using news feeds …
(Content syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This provides websites with additional opportunities to generate new web visitors.
Many news reporting agencies and leading online media publications will contain a feed section (look for menu links that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “express tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major online media publications include an RSS feed section. Image Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image Source: New York Times RSS)
These feeds give you access to different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, arts news, editorials, etc.)
A feed list can also include further feed subcategories …
(An RSS directory can also include subcategories. Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use feeds is copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Syndicating Content – Benefits
Syndicating content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s site additional exposure online, it also adds value to your site without you having to create that content …
(Using RSS Feeds)
While adding a 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 use your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(Look for ways to get users to syndicate your feed … it will help to increase your web traffic!)
Overview Of The WordPress Feed
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display as part of your navigation menu, just scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Access your WordPress RSS feed in the Entries RSS menu)
2) You can also find built-in links and buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your feed.
For example, in the screenshot below, a visitor can simply copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS links to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on your WP theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Follow, or Links toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Link To Us, or Keep In Touch toolbar)
4) You can also view your 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 WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your WordPress RSS …
(Feed entries displayed with Firefox)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you use …
(RSS content as seen using a Google Chrome web browser)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
Specify how many posts you would like displayed in your Feeds section in the Reading Settings section. Type the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Settings – Reading Settings – Syndication feed items field)
Your feed section will display the number of posts as you have specified in the Reading Settings section …
(Your feed page will show the number of 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 WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display articles as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how a feed appears)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using Post excerpts in WordPress here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all that’s required to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for an RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ‘subscribe’ link. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into a feedreader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
Adding RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we’ll add content from other sites to yours.
Adding An RSS Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you operate in, you can easily add to your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding content from their RSS feed. You can easily 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 the WordPress sidebar area …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)
First, Go to a website containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy its feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, go to your Widgets panel and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your web 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:
How To Add Feeds To Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post instead of your sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS Aggregator, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us if you need assistance with plugin configuration.
Here are some auto blogging plugins that allow you to create new with feeds and imported content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.
You can manage all the feeds you import and organize them according to campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with additional functionality with a number of premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WP Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of every item in the feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can combine and display content from various RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom fonts, colors, borders, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any tablet, phone, or computer and supports text in any language.
The premium version of this plugin contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, manually accept or reject posts, and more.
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 other sources.
This plugin provides functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and help take your WordPress CMS to a new level.
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress site-generated 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.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that bring together content from many different sources), or bring together all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog – 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 the URL of your feed, 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
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Use a plugin like the RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Using RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to giving online users access to RSS feeds of your latest posts.
You can inspect your comments feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries displayed on Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed items viewed on Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the comments RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the 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 has been installed in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Single Post Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for individual posts 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 using an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(Single Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the web address of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Post Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to subscribe to content about specific topics. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your website or blog publishes content under a number of categories, you can easily offer visitors a separate RSS feed for each different category.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(WordPress post categories feed format)
Copy the category link address …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(Feed format for category)
Your RSS feed will now only display content posted for 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 – Provide Your Own Feeds Page
You can set up a directory of feeds that allows readers to subscribe to content in specific categories …
(Publish A List Of RSS Feeds)
You can link an RSS graphic to your category (or single post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about creating tables in WordPress, refer to this tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in several different ways, such as adding videos and images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows you to configure a number of different feed formats without messing with code. For example, the table below contains some of the kinds of feeds you can use and how to format these feeds …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown in the table 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 – Includes the latest comments posted on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for a specific post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed containing the latest comments made on a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/02/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – RSS feed that includes latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed displaying the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Feed displaying the latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed that includes 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 RSS feed. Place your ’subscribe to RSS’ link somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide useful information that educates, engages, and entertains. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content to your site and get other users to subscribe to your content online with RSS feeds!)
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 RSS feed 🙂
RSS – Resources:
- RSS Feed Images – Visit a site like www.iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about using RSS.
- WordPress.org – Official WordPress documentation and reference. Go here for additional information about WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know where your RSS feed is located, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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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)