No matter what product or service you sell or what industry your business belongs to, you need to provide quality information to your site or blog visitors. For example, if you provide travel-related services, you may want to publish the latest information from government and foreign travel departments, such as news and updates on travel warnings, advice from consular offices, etc.
The problem with creating this kind of information, however, is that it takes a huge amount of effort and resources. You have to do a lot of information sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your sources, content writing and editing (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 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 much simpler way to keep your readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is one of the easiest ways to provide your readers with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
What Is RSS?
- RSS, which, according to some is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, is more commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. It is often referred to as a “feed” or “news feed”.
- RSS lets content publishers automatically syndicate their content so that their site readers can read it without having to keep revisiting sites to check for updates.
- RSS feeds are typically used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news, audios, etc., which users can then subscribe to.
- You can view the content of RSS feeds using web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software called feed readers, or feed aggregators. Feed readers are used to find content on all different kinds of topics and syndicate this content online.
- There are different kinds of feeds, read by different 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 machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine different RSS feeds to display news and updates sourced from different sites.
This comprehensive guide shows you how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS feeds, and how to display someone else’s content on your site via RSS feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a really powerful method used to share content online. Feeds provide online users with a simple way to stay up-to-date with the latest information posted on sites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Digital agencies and leading online media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.
Content syndication allows many news reporting agencies and many leading media publications to deliver readers stories from all around the planet without actually having to hire and post additional reporters to every location in the world …
(News reporting agencies and many highly-visited online media publications rely heavily on syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Global media publications syndicate newsworthy content using news feeds …
(Content syndication is used by online newspapers to share information with other news publications)
Most websites actually want you to share their information. Content syndication not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the site that originally published the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.
Many digital content publishing agencies and major content sites provide links to a feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, 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.) …
(Major sites contain a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a directory of different RSS feeds …
(A website’s list of different RSS feeds. Image Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These RSS feed items allow you to source content from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, lifestyle magazine, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain feed subcategories …
(An RSS list can also include subcategories. Image: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is just a URL. To use RSS feeds, all you need to do is to copy the URLs and paste these into a program 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 gives someone else’s website additional exposure online and adds value to your site without you having to create the content …
(Syndicating Content - 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 you also want other websites to use your content.
When other websites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Try to get users to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)
WordPress RSS Feed – About
By default, WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, there are a few ways to access your WordPress RSS feed:
1) If your theme displays the Meta widget on your navigation menu …
(The feed page will display as many recent posts as you have specified in your WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
Another setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or a summary …
(WordPress Reading Settings – ’For each article in a feed show’: ‘Full text’ or ‘Summary’)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how feeds display)
To learn more about Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s show you how this works.
First, go to a website whose content you want to subscribe to and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for an RSS feed icon. 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 the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feedreaders, WordPress also has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your WP Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from another website or blog’s RSS feeds to your WordPress site.
How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can easily add to your site the latest updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by adding content from their RSS feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site like news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Let’s add an RSS feed to your sidebar)
copy the RSS feed from a site containing content that you would like to add to your sidebar to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to your clipboard)
Next, paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your site in your web browser. The content from the RSS feed can now be seen in the sidebar (or wherever you have added the RSS widget – e.g. custom menu) …
(RSS Feed Content Added To Sidebar)
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 Content From RSS Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
What if you want to add content from an RSS feed to posts instead of a sidebar?
You can easily do this using plugins. Search inside the ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for complete instructions, or contact us for 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)
WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all the feeds you import and arrange them into campaigns and categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with additional functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to import RSS feeds directly into your posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
RSS Post Importer can be used to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full-text RSS feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each feed item as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS automatically combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom borders, fonts, colors, and more. It also displays feeds correctly on all tablets, phones, and computers and supports text in every language.
The premium version of POWr 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 Plugin For WordPress)
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 functionality like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn, export WordPress posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin)
FeedWordPress is a simple and flexible 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 plugin to create aggregator site (sites that display content from various different sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, YouTube, or other online services, into a Lifestream.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog by WPMUDev
(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 that you want it to post to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages)
The RSS Includes Pages plugin lets you display 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 displays RSS feeds of your post comments in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available.
You can access these by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar menu …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors display in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries viewed on a Firefox web browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed content will display differently depending on the web browser you are using …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed on a Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into a feedreader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Image: 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 WordPress site installation is in a subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Specific Posts
Being able to display an RSS feed for single posts 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 single post items is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Individual Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the post URL, and add “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post address, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not the post content itself.
Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from one or two categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
WordPress allows you to create category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(Format for WP post categories feed)
Copy the selected category URL …
(Copy the selected category URL …)
And append “feed” to the end of it …
(WP post categories feed format)
Your category feed now only contains content published under 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 – Publish Your Own List Of RSS Feeds
You can set up your own RSS feeds list that allows readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Create A List Of RSS Feeds For Your Visitors)
You can link an image like the one shown below to category (or single post) feeds and then create a table or a list of all individual feeds on a separate page …
(RSS button. Image: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
To learn more about inserting tables into WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial:
RSS – Additional Notes
You can customize your feeds in several ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows various RSS feed configurations without messing with code. For example, the table below shows some of the kinds of custom feed types you can use and how to structure your feeds …
(Different Custom Feeds You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
Here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the table 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 – Contains the latest comments left on your site
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed containing a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on an individual post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – RSS feed containing the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/04/11/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Displays latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/02/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains 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 let your site users know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure you place your ’subscribe to RSS’ links somewhere visible …
(Promote your RSS feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that online users will only want to subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with very high-quality content that can add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add someone else’s content and get other users to share your content 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 🙂
Resources:
- Download RSS Buttons – Visit sites like FeedIcons or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss images”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable Free RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization responsible for publishing the RSS specification, providing guidance to developers who create RSS applications and helping to further the understanding of RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and information repository. Visit this site to learn more about WordPress and RSS.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via RSS.
Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress please click on links to visit our related posts section.
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