No matter what product or service you provide or what industry your business belongs to, providing high-quality information on your site or blog is vitally important. For example, if you provide accounting or financial planning services, you may want to publish useful information from the taxation office, such as news and updates on tax rulings, small business tax tips, etc.
To create and publish this kind of information, however, involves an enormous amount of effort and resources. You have to do a ton of information sifting, researching and organizing, checking the accuracy of your facts, writing and editing content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then continually make sure that this information is 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 well beyond your control.
Thankfully, there is a simpler way to continually provide your site readers with up-to-date information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS - The easiest way to provide your site visitors with great information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
RSS – A Basic Overview
- RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It is often called a “feed” or “web feed”.
- Once users subscribe to a website’s feed, they no longer have to physically check the source website for content updates. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and keeps subscribers up-to-date.
- Feeds are often used to publish information that is frequently updated, such as blog posts, news headlines, music playlists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
- Essentially, an RSS feed is an XML (XML = Extensible Markup Language) document that includes full or summarized text along with other metadata such as published date, feed author, etc. It allows people to subscribe to content on websites and then browse updates posted on these websites using a feedreader. Conversely, RSS feeds also enable publishers to syndicate their web content automatically.
- There are different feed formats and these can be read by different feedreaders. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom (also called AtomPub or APP feeds and RDF feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure compatibility with different machines, feedreaders, and programs.
- Many sites and software tools also let you combine different RSS feeds to receive news and updates from various sources.
In this comprehensive guide, we will show you 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.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful (and legitimate) way to share content online. RSS Feeds provide online users with a simple way to receive the latest information posted on different websites.
First, let’s look at content syndication.
Many digital news publishers rely heavily on content syndication to publish news from other news agencies around the world.
Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers the latest news and stories from all around the globe without actually having to set up more news reporting and content writing staff all around the world …
(Media publications rely on content syndication to publish stories from other news agencies around the planet.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing newsworthy content. Global media publications syndicate content using feeds …
(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share information with other publications)
Most sites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows high-quality information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site that published the content being syndicated. This provides websites with new opportunities to generate additional web visitors.
Major content sites will include a feed section (look for links that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “miami herald rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Leading news reporting agencies have a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds section brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
These feed items let readers access information from different areas of the site (e.g. business news, entertainment news, editorials, etc.)
Feed sections can also contain subcategory feeds …
(RSS Feed section. Source: latimes.com)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. To use an RSS feed, all you need to do is copy the URL and paste it into an application that can process the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Using RSS Feeds
Syndicating content from someone else’s website on your website has some obvious benefits. It helps someone else’s site and helps your site by freeing you up from having to create the content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
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 you the opportunity to get increased exposure online and drive new visitors …
(Look for ways to get other sites to syndicate your content … it will help to increase your traffic!)
Your WordPress RSS Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing others to syndicate your content on their websites and blogs.
Depending on your WordPress site’s theme, there are a few ways to get your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to display on your navigation menu, you can scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta widget – Entries RSS)
2) You can also find built-in links or buttons on certain themes that let your visitors copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can copy the site’s RSS feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy RSS URLs 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 Follow, Social Share, or Links toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Share, Links, or Follow Us toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress site’s 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 subfolder, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS feed …
(Feed entries seen on Firefox browser)
Note that your feed content will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Feed entries viewed on Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
To specify how many posts you want to display in your RSS Feed section, go to your Reading Settings section and type in the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
Your feed section will display the number of items you have specified in the Reading Settings section …
(Your feed will display the number of items you have specified in your WP 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 posts in your feed as full text, or just as a summary …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings – Display ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how content in your feeds will display)
For a detailed tutorial on Post excerpts, go here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned previously, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL to your clipboard and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, go to a website whose feed you want to subscribe to and look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link or icon using any of the methods described earlier …
(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ button or link. Image source: http://www.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 feed URL into an online feedreader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feed reader to view the feed content. Source: Feedreader.com)
Like feed readers, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds.
Adding Feeds To Your Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from another site to yours.
How To Add Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry you are part of, you can easily add to your site the latest news from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their feed. You can use feeds to display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook comments, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar navigation area …
(Add content from an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar area)
copy the RSS feed URL from a website or blog containing content that you want to add to your site to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)
Next, log into your wordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance > Widget paste the feed into an RSS widget …
(WP RSS Widget)
To learn more about adding content to sidebars using widgets, go here:
Load your website in your web browser. The content should now appear in your sidebar (or wherever you have inserted the RSS widget) …
(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 Content From RSS Feeds To Posts
Can content from an RSS feed be added to a post? Yes, it can!
You can do this using WordPress plugins. Just search on the WordPress plugin repository for RSS feed, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: Most RSS plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for assistance with plugin configuration.
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 Plugin For WordPress)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and arrange feeds according to categories.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator WP Plugin)
WP RSS Aggregator is a comprehensive RSS feed importer and auto blogging plugin for WordPress with additional functionality with premium add-ons.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on is a popular, feature-rich importer that allows you to import RSS feeds directly into WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin)
RSS Post Importer can be used to syndicate, curate, import, merge and display full text feeds on your WordPress blog.
RSS Post Importer will fetch an RSS feed and publish the entire content of each item in your feed as a separate post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS combines and displays content from a number of different RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and articles, adjust feed priority, use custom backgrounds, fonts, colors, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in all languages.
The premium edition of POWr contains many additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, 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 lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, 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)
FeedWordPress provides simple and flexible syndication options for WordPress-generated content.
As stated in the FeedWordPress website …
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 display all of your online activity in one place.
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 in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Just copy and paste in the URL of your feed, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select a blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin For WordPress)
RSS Includes Pages lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.
For more details, go here:
Useful Tips
Tip #1 – WP Comment RSS Feeds
In addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users, WordPress also makes available RSS feeds of your post comments.
You can see these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in the ‘Meta’ section of your sidebar (note: your theme may not be configured to display this widget) …
(WordPress Comments RSS)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors can be seen in the Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed content displayed on a Firefox browser)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on which browser you use …
(RSS comments feed items seen with Google Chrome)
Again, you can check what the feed contains by pasting the URL of the feed into a feed reader …
(Paste your URL of your comments feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: 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 WP installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating Feeds For Individual Items
Being able to access an RSS feed for a single 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 using an RSS feed for individual posts is shown below:
(RSS Feed For Individual Post Item)
To create the above feed, copy the post address, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post RSS Feed)
Note: By default, if you only append “/feed” to the end of a post URI, WordPress will return the comments left on that post, not actual content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only be interested in subscribing to content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to your entire site’s feed.
WordPress allows you to create separate category feeds.
Just use the format shown below:
(WP category feed format)
Copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And add “feed” to the end of it …
(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)
Your RSS feed now only includes content published in this category …
(Category-specific 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 – Publish Your Own RSS Feeds List
You can provide a page of RSS feeds on your site that allows your readers to subscribe only to content in specific categories …
(Provide Your Own List Of RSS Feeds For Your Site Visitors)
Link an image to your category (or single post) feed URLs and then create a table or a list of your category feeds on a new page …
(RSS icon. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have written a detailed tutorial on creating tables in WordPress content here:
RSS – Additional Notes
Feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require editing code.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations without touching code. Below are examples of some of the kinds of custom feed formats you can display …
(Different Feed Types You Can Create With WordPress RSS)
Below are the 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 – RSS feed containing the latest comments published on your website or blog
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed for a single post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: RSS Feed for the latest comments made on a post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Includes the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2013/03/03/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2016/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed displaying the latest entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Contains latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: Includes the 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 visitors know that they can subscribe to your RSS feed. Place a ’subscribe to RSS’ button somewhere visible …
(Encourage your site users to subscribe to your RSS feeds!)
Keep in mind that other website owners will only subscribe to your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their visitors.
(Add content to your site and get other sites to share your content with WordPress and 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:
- Feed Buttons – Visit Iconspedia.com or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo”, etc.) for sites that allow you to download RSS graphic elements.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board Go here if you want to learn more about RSS.
- Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – Official WordPress documentation and information site. Visit this site for additional information about using 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 add someone else’s content to your site using RSS feeds.
Hopefully, you now have 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 using WordPress for a business website or blog please see other posts on this site.
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