No matter what service or product you sell, it’s vitally important to provide quality information to your site or blog visitors. For example, if your business provides insurance services, it’s not a bad idea to include the latest information from government departments, such as news and updates on statistical research, insurance tips, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, is really time-consuming. You have to filter through, gather, and organize a ton 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 lot of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to keep your site visitors up-to-date with your information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The simplest way to provide your blog subscribers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – Basic Information
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- Once a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the content and keep subscribers updated.
- RSS feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, videos, etc., which other users can choose to subscribe to.
- RSS feed content can be viewed with a software program called an RSS reader, or feed aggregator. Feed readers are used to access new content published on websites and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to many online properties.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different devices, readers, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from many different sources.
In this guide, we show you where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site using RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a very powerful (and legitimate) way to share web content. RSS Feeds provide an easy way for web users to receive the latest information published on websites and blogs they are interested in.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many digital content publishing agencies and global media publications use content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows digital news publishers to deliver readers stories and news from all around the globe without having to employ and send more staff and writers everywhere around the world …
(Global media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy items from other news agencies all around the world.)
Syndication is used to share content legitimately with other sites. Global media publications syndicate content using news feeds …
(News reporting agencies syndicate information using feeds)
Most sites actually want you to syndicate their information. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends 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.
Leading news reporting agencies contain a feed section (look for links in the navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “salt lake tribune rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most online newspapers and major online media publications contain a feed section. Image: SMH RSS )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section will bring up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(RSS Feeds. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feed items give readers access to information from different sections of the site (e.g. technology news, arts news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also include further subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is only a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you have to do is copy the URLs and paste these into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using Feeds – Benefits
Syndicating content from someone else’s website or blog on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create this content …
(Syndicating Content Benefits Someone Else’s Business And Yours!)
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 sites to use your content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate content using your RSS feed, this gives you the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Look for ways to get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WP theme, there are a few ways to get your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed as part of your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links and buttons on certain themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe to RSS” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on the theme you have installed, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Follow, Link To Us, or Social Share section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Links, or Follow section)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s feed by simply 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 WordPress installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up your RSS page …
(Feed entries viewed with a Firefox browser)
Note that your feed items will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(Feed entries displayed on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many posts you want to show in your RSS section in the Reading Settings section. Select the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Number of syndication feed items setting)
Your feed will display the number of posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section …
(Your feed page will display the number of posts as 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 WP Reading Settings section that affects your feeds is whether to display posts in your feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for posts in a feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …
(Post excerpts can affect how content in your feeds will display)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using WordPress Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you have to do to view the content of an RSS feed is to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that translates feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to syndicate and look for an RSS feed link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Search for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy your feed URL)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of your feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into content that can be read by your visitors.
How To Add Feeds To Your WP Site
Let’s show you how to add content from other sites to your WordPress site.
How To Add An RSS Feed To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could display on your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing content from their RSS 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 …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a website that publishes content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, go to your Widgets screen and paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Section – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content should appear on the 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:
Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress Posts
Can content from RSS feeds be added to WordPress posts instead of your sidebar? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your Plugins admin section for RSS Post, RSS feed to post, etc.
(‘Add Plugins’ search results – RSS plugins for WordPress)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
Here are a few plugins that let you add RSS feeds to your content:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use plugin that allows you to 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)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to 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 Plugin)
RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.
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 For WordPress)
POWr RSS Feed automatically combines and displays content from multiple RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom fonts, colors, backgrounds, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on any computer, phone, or tablet and supports text in every language.
The premium plugin version contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that allows you to curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.
This plugin provides loads of functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export your 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)
FeedWordPress provides versatile syndication options for WordPress-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.
You can use this FeedWordPress to create aggregator sites, or bring together all your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog Plugin)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, without coding skills or complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages – WordPress Plugin)
Use RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types if you would like 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 Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of comments posted on your site.
To inspect these, go to the ‘Meta’ widget on your sidebar menu (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) and click on Comments RSS …
(WordPress Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed items as seen with a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which web browser you are using …
(Comments feed items displayed using Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feedreader to view the content. Image: 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 website or blog is located in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Individual Post Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for a single post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific items to RSS aggregator sites, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for accessing an RSS feed for specific post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Specific Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the URI of your post, and add “/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 made on your post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content about certain topics. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
If your site contains content published under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to provide a separate feed for each post category.
All you have to do is use the format shown below:
(Use this format for WP category feed)
Copy the category URL …
(Copy your category link address …)
Append “feed” to the end of it …
(WP category RSS feed format)
The feed will now only contain content posted in 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 – Create A Page Of RSS Feeds For Subscribers
You can create a directory of feeds that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Set Up An RSS Feeds List)
Link an image to your category feed URLs and then create a table or a list of all category feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button graphic. Image Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
If you need help with creating tables in WordPress content, see this tutorial:
RSS Feeds – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various 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 several feed formats without code editing skills. Here are some examples of feeds you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Custom Feeds)
Below are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image 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 – Feed that contains the latest comments posted on your blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Displays the latest comments made on single items
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/11/22/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Includes the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2010/09/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest items in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest post entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Displays the latest posts for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One last thing …
Remember to promote your RSS feeds. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ links somewhere visible …
(Remember to make your feeds visible your RSS feeds!)
Also, keep in mind that other website owners will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Add someone else’s content and get others to share your content online with WordPress and 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 🙂
RSS Resources:
- Feed Graphics – Visit iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss buttons”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- 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 broadening the public understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about RSS feeds.
- WordPress.org/WordPress Feeds – WordPress documentation. Go here for additional information about RSS feeds in WordPress.
Congratulations! Now you know how 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 using their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this article 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 the benefits of using WordPress for a business web site please see other posts we have published on this site.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie