No matter what your business provides or what industry you are a part of, providing quality information to your site readers is vitally important. For example, if you provide health-related services, it’s a good idea to publish 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 requires a great deal of work and expertise. You have to do a ton of data sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, content writing and editing (or hire someone to do this for you), and then ensure that this information is continually up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a huge amount 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 users up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the simplest ways to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – What Does It Mean?
- RSS is short for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for updated content. Instead, their browser will constantly monitor the content and keep feed subscribers up-to-date.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as new blog posts, news, video lists, etc., to which users can choose to subscribe.
- You can view RSS feeds using a program called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feed readers can be used to find new content published on websites and distribute this content (and any updates made to this content) online.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed aggregators. 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 compatibility with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this detailed article, we show you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for web users to receive the latest information posted on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s take a look at how syndication is used.
Most online newspapers rely on content syndication to publish news from news agencies all around the world.
Content syndication allows online newspapers to deliver readers the latest news from all around the planet without having to employ more reporters and content writers all around the world …
(Many online newspapers and many popular media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. online media publications syndicate newsworthy content using feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate their content using feeds)
Most websites actually would like you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Most news reporting agencies and major sites have 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”, “international herald tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major content sites will contain a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section brings up a directory of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS directory. Image: NY Times RSS)
Each of these feed items lets readers access different areas of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories …
(RSS Feed section. Image: latimes.com)
Note: An RSS feed is just a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into software that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It gives someone else’s content additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content - Benefits)
While adding RSS 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 use your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Get other sites to syndicate content using your feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
WordPress RSS
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget on the sidebar or footer menu …
(Your feed will display as many recent items you have specified in the WordPress Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in the WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display articles as full text, or as a summary …
(Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how your feed content displays …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds will appear)
We have written a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view a feed’s content, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or button using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process XML/RSS feeds.
How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other websites to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you can display on your site the latest content 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 updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website or blog containing content that you would like to display on your site and copy the RSS feed …
(Copy the 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 web browser. The content from the RSS feed should now display in your sidebar (or wherever the RSS widget has been inserted) …
(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 RSS Feeds To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to posts? It sure can!
You can easily do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin directory for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(’Add Plugins’ search results)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for full instructions, or contact us if you need assistance configuring plugins.
The plugins below can be used to feed content to posts, or “autoblog” (An auto blog is a blog with content that is automatically gathered and compiled from RSS feeds):
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico – WordPress Plugin)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from multiple RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds into categories and campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin that offers a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin lets you add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into posts or any other custom post type.
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 RSS feeds on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin will fetch an RSS feed and publish the full content of each feed item as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
POWr RSS combines and displays content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust the priority of different feeds, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in any language.
The premium version contains a number of 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)
The WP Pipes plugin 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, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter, export posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress provides flexible Atom/RSS syndication options 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 content from various different sources), or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Facebook, YouTube, 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 very quickly, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
Use a plugin like RSS Includes Pages if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available.
You can access the comments in your feed by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ widget area of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(Comments RSS)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in your Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed entries seen using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed items seen using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: 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 website is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Single Items
Being able to display an RSS feed for an individual post item can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS directories, 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 posts is shown below:
(Single Post RSS Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of the URI of your post, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Using Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create separate category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)
Copy the category URL …
(Copy the selected category link address …)
Append the word “feed” to the end of it …
(RSS feed format for category)
Your category feed now only includes content posted under that particular category …
(Category RSS 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 A Page Of Feeds For Subscribers
You can create your own RSS feeds directory that allows readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Provide A Page Of Feeds On Your Site)
You can also link an RSS button to each feed and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a new page …
(RSS button image. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
If you need help with adding tables to WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Additional Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in a number of ways, such as adding images to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows a number of feed configurations without messing with code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can create …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Contains the latest comments published on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on individual items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Displays latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/07/20/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/10/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Displays the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Displays latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes latest entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
It’s a good idea to let visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your subscribe button image in a visible location …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to syndicate your content if you publish useful content. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Easily add content to your site and get other sites to syndicate 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 – Resources:
- RSS Feed Buttons – Visit Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS graphics.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing the RSS specification, guiding developers who create RSS applications and helping the public gain a better understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and reference. Go here to learn more about feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display content from other websites and blogs on your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better understanding of issues 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 see other great articles and tutorials we have published on this site.
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