No matter what product or service your business provides, it’s important to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides insurance-related services, you may want to publish the latest information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance advice, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it is very time-consuming. You have to filter through, research, and organize a ton of information, check your sources for accuracy, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually ensure that this information is 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 completely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is a simpler way to keep your users up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your users with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Some Basic Information About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It can also be called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- After a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the source website for updated content. Instead, their web browser will continually monitor the feed and automatically keep subscribers updated.
- Feeds are also used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog posts, news, audio lists, etc., to which other users can then subscribe.
- RSS feeds can be viewed with a web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software-based tool called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to find content on all kinds of topics and distribute this content (and any updates made to the content) to other sites.
- Feeds can be made available in different types and read by different feed readers. 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 that feeds are compatible with different machines and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine multiple RSS feeds to receive news and updates sourced from a number of sites.
This article shows you where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to add content from other websites to your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) method used to share content online. RSS Feeds provide a simple way for online users to receive the latest information published on websites they are interested in.
First, let’s look at how syndication is used.
Media publications rely on syndication to publish content from content sources all around the world.
Content syndication allows most news reporting agencies and many highly-visited online media publications to deliver readers stories from all over the planet without actually having to employ and set up additional news reporters and writers in every place around the world …
(Global media publications use syndication to publish newsworthy content from news sources around the world.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Online newspapers syndicate news stories using news feeds …
(Online newspapers syndicate their content using feeds)
Most sites actually want you to share their information. Syndicating content not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it can also drive visitors back to the original site that created and published the content being syndicated. This creates links that can drive traffic back to their site.
Many online newspapers and major content sites contain an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation menu that say “RSS” or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “courier mail rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Most digital content publishers include a feed section. Source: smh.com.au )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link will bring up a list of different RSS feed sections …
(RSS feeds list. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feeds give you access to different sections of the site (e.g. business news, arts news, science news, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain feed subcategories …
(RSS Feed section. Image Source: latimes.com feeds)
Note: An RSS feed is only a URL. To use the feed, all you have to do is copy the URL and paste it into a program that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s site on your site has some obvious benefits. It not only gives someone else’s website additional exposure online, 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 a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s worth keeping in mind that you also want other websites to use your content.
When other websites syndicate your RSS feed, this gives your business the opportunity to gain increased exposure online and drive new web traffic …
(Get users to syndicate content using your RSS feed … it will help increase your exposure online!)
WordPress RSS – Overview
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of your latest posts, allowing other online users to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on which theme you have installed, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in your navigation menu …
(The 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 your WordPress Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display your posts as full text, or a summary …
(Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in a RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how your feed content will appear)
We have created a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you need to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into an application that can read and translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website or blog and search for their RSS feed link …
(Look for a ‘subscribe’ icon. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL)
If you want, you can check what the RSS feed contains by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …
(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into readable content.
Adding RSS Feeds To WordPress
Let’s show you how to add content sourced from another website to yours.
How To Add RSS Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are in, you could easily display on your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply adding their RSS feed. You can easily 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 RSS content to your sidebar …
(Let’s add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website or blog that publishes content that you want to add to your sidebar and copy the RSS feed …
(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 adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content should display in the sidebar …
(RSS Feed 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 RSS Feed Content To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to WordPress posts? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search inside your ’Add Plugins’ section (Plugins > Add New) for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help configuring plugins.
The plugins below are useful for adding 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 WP Plugin)
WPeMatico is an easy to use autoblogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from specific RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress that offers premium add-ons for additional functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post extension for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts or any other custom post type.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer lets you import, curate, syndicate, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress website or blog.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the entire content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed)
With the POWr RSS Feed plugin, you can automatically combine and display content from multiple content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and articles, adjust feed size and spacing, use custom fonts, borders, colors, and more. It also has mobile-responsive design and supports text in every language.
The premium plugin edition contains a number of additional features.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes Plugin)
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, autoblogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, export your posts as podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress is a versatile Atom/RSS syndication plugin for WordPress 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 plugin to create aggregator sites, or bring together all of your online activity in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog WP Plugin)
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 your feed URL, give the feed a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types
(RSS Includes Pages Plugin For WordPress)
Use RSS Includes Pages if you want to include pages in your RSS feed and not just posts (by default WordPress only includes posts in your RSS feed).
For more details, go here:
Using WordPress RSS – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available, WordPress also displays RSS feeds of the latest comments posted on your site.
To access your comments feed, go to the ‘Meta’ widget area on your sidebar (note: this section may not be visible on some themes) and click on Comments RSS …
(Comments Feed)
Comments posted on your site by visitors and users will appear in the Comments RSS page …
(Comments feed items viewed using Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed items will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Comments feed items as seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. 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 website is located in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Using Feeds For Specific Posts
Being able to create an RSS feed for a single post item 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 making an RSS feed for a single post item is shown below:
(Feed For Single Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the URL 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 a post URL, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not actual post content itself.
Tip #3 – Category RSS Feeds
Some your site users may only be interested in subscribing to content from a specific category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If your website publishes content under multiple categories, WordPress allows you to easily offer readers a separate RSS feed for each post category.
All you need to do is use the format below:
(WordPress category feed format)
Select and copy the category link address …
(Copy your category link address …)
And add “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress category feed)
The category RSS feed now only contains content published in this particular category …
(Category-specific 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 – Provide A Directory Of Feeds For Your Site Visitors
You can create an RSS feeds list that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in …
(Provide Your Own Feeds Directory)
Link an RSS graphic like the one shown below to the URL of your category feed and then create a table or a list of your feeds on a new page …
(RSS button graphic. Image Source: public-domain-photos.com)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about inserting tables into WordPress pages and posts, go here:
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 feed customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows you to configure several feed formats that do not require touching code. Here are some examples of feed types you can display …
(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)
Below are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – displays your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Feed that displays the latest comments left on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: Feed for a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Includes the latest comments made on single posts
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/10/26/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/01/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – Feed containing the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2015/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes the latest entries for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Contains 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 promote your RSS feed. Place your subscribe link or button in a visible location …
(Promote your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only want to syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality information that will add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add great content to your site and get other users to syndicate your content online 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 🙂
Additional RSS Resources:
- Feed Images – Visit sites like iconspedia.com/search/rss or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “rss icon”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS images.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – General information about the benefits of using RSS.
- WordPress Codex: WordPress Feeds – WordPress software documentation site. Visit this site to learn more about feeds in WordPress.
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 display content from other websites on your site via RSS feeds.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To read more about the benefits of using the WP CMS platform please click on links to visit our related posts section.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now