No matter what service or product your business sells, providing quality information to your site users is important. For example, if your business provides insurance-related services, you may want to publish useful information from government departments, such as news or updates on statistical findings, insurance advice, etc.

The problem with creating this type of information, however, is that it requires a great deal of effort and resources. You have to do a lot 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 continually make sure that this information is kept 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 well beyond your control.

Thankfully, there is a simpler way to provide your users with up-to-date information.

It’s called RSS …

(RSS - One of the simplest ways to provide your subscribers with great information)

The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS

Basic Information About RSS

• RSS, which, according to some stands for RDF Site Summary, is more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication. It it is also referred to as a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
• Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually visit and check the source website for updated content. Instead, their browser will continually monitor the content and keep feed subscribers up-to-date.
• RSS feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, video lists, etc., which other users can then subscribe to.
• RSS feed content can be viewed with a program called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to find new content published on websites and syndicate this content (and updates made to this content) online.
• There are different kinds of feeds, read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom Publishing Protocol) feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) 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 several RSS feeds to aggregate news and updates sourced from many different sites.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explain where your RSS feed is located, how to syndicate your content online using feeds, and how to display content from other sites on your site via their RSS feed.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds

Content syndication is a really powerful (and legitimate) method used for sharing web content. RSS Feeds provide online users with an easy way to keep up with the latest information posted on different sites.

First, let’s look at content syndication.

Media publications use content syndication to publish newsworthy content from content sources all around the world.

Content syndication allows news reporting agencies to deliver readers the most recent news headlines and newsworthy stories from around the globe without having to hire more news reporting agencies everywhere in the world …

(Content publishing agencies rely on syndication to publish news and stories from other news agencies all around the planet.)

Syndication is used to share content legitimately. Global media publications syndicate their stories using feeds …

(Content syndication is used by global media publications to share newsworthy content with other publications)

Most sites actually want you to share their content. Content syndication not only allows great information to be shared, but it also drives visitors back to the original site responsible for publishing the content being syndicated. This creates new ways to drive traffic back to their site.

Many news reporting agencies and leading online media publications provide links to an RSS feed section (look for menu links 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.) …

(Leading news reporting agencies have an RSS feed section. Image: SMH RSS )

Clicking on a site’s RSS feeds link brings up a list of RSS feeds for different content topics on the site …

(RSS feeds directory. Source: nytimes.com RSS feeds)

Each of these RSS feed items lets readers access content from different areas of the website (e.g. technology news, sports news, editorials, etc.)

Feed sections can also contain further subcategories …

(A feed list can also include subcategories. Image: latimes.com)

Note: A feed is only a URL. All you need to do to use RSS feeds is to copy the URLs and paste these into an application that can process the feed code into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.

Content Syndication – Benefits

Syndicating someone else’s content on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only helps someone else’s website, it also adds value to your site without you 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 that you don’t have to create, it’s a great idea to try and get other sites to use your content.

When other sites syndicate your content, this gives your business the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more visitors …

(Try to get visitors to syndicate your content … it will help drive more traffic to your site!)

About Your WordPress RSS Feed

WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their websites.

Depending on your theme, there are a number of ways to access your RSS feed:

1) If your theme has been configured to display the Meta widget in a standard or custom menu …

(The feed page will display as many recent items you have specified in your Reading Settings section)

Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed

The other setting in your WP Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display each article as full text, or just a summary …

(WordPress Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for articles in your RSS feed)

Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed appears …

(Post excerpts affect how your feed content displays)

To learn more about using WordPress Post excerpts, go here:

• Post Excerpts - A Tutorial

View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds

As mentioned earlier, to view the content of an RSDS feed, you have to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that reads and translates feeds into readable content for humans.

Let’s show you how this works.

First, go to a website whose content you want to syndicate and search for a ‘subscribe’ icon or link using any of the methods described earlier …

(Look for a ’subscribe to feed’ link. Image source: YourCoffeeGuru.com)

Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed to the clipboard)

If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feedreader …

(Paste the feed URL into a feed reader 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.

Adding Feeds To WordPress

In the example below, we are going to add content from other sites to your site.

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 content from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry simply by importing their RSS feed. You can use feeds to 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 …

(Add an RSS feed to the WordPress sidebar)

First, find a website containing content that you would like to add to your site and copy the RSS feed URL to your clipboard …

(Copy the URL of your feed)

Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …

(RSS Widget)

To learn more about using widgets, go here:

• Using Widgets

Load your site in your web browser. The content will now show on the sidebar …

(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 Set Up Webmaster Accounts

How To Add RSS Feed Content To Posts

Can content from RSS feeds be added to a post? It sure can!

You can do this using WordPress plugins. Search on WordPress.org plugin repository for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.

(‘Add Plugins’ section – WordPress RSS plugins)

Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us if you need help with plugin configuration.

Here are a number of auto blogging plugins for WordPress that let you create posts using feeds:

WPeMatico

(WPeMatico)

WPeMatico is an auto blogging plugin that lets you publish posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds of your choice.

You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize feeds into campaigns and categories.

For more details, go here:

• WPeMatico Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator

(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin)

WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and autoblogging WordPress plugin with premium add-ons for additional functionality.

For example, the Feed to Post add-on lets you autoblog by importing RSS feeds directly into WP posts.

For more details, go here:

• WP RSS Aggregator Plugin

RSS Post Importer

(RSS Post Importer Plugin For WordPress)

RSS Post Importer allows you to curate, syndicate, import, merge and display full-text feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.) on your WordPress site.

RSS Post Importer fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of each item in your feed as a separate post.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Post Importer WordPress Plugin

Powr RSS Feed

(Powr RSS Feed Plugin For WordPress)

With POWr RSS Feed, you can combine and display content from multiple RSS feeds.

The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display videos, images, and article content, adjust sizing and spacing of feeds, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.

The premium version contains many additional features.

For more details, go here:

• Powr RSS Feed Plugin

WP Pipes

(WP Pipes Plugin)

The WP Pipes plugin for WordPress is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and many other sources.

This plugin provides features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, auto blogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!

For more details, go here:

• WP Pipes – WordPress Plugin

FeedWordPress

(FeedWordPress – WordPress Plugin)

FeedWordPress is a flexible syndication plugin for WordPress site 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.

FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator site (sites that bring together content from different sources), or bring together all your online activity (e.g. from your blog, Twitter, Flickr, or other online services, into a Lifestream.

For more details, go here:

• FeedWordPress

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. Just copy and paste in your feed URL, name your feed (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.

For more details, go here:

• Autoblog Plugin

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types

(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types Plugin)

RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types lets you display pages in your RSS feed in addition to posts.

For more details, go here:

• RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types – WordPress Plugin

Using RSS – Useful Tips

Tip #1 – WordPress Comment RSS Feeds

WordPress makes available RSS feeds of your latest post comments in addition to giving online users access to feeds of your latest posts.

You can access these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ section …

(WordPress Comments Feed)

Comments posted on your site by visitors and users display in your Comments RSS page …

(RSS comments feed content viewed using Firefox)

Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the web browser you use …

(Comments feed items displayed using a Google Chrome browser)

Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into an online feed reader …

(Paste your 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 WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)

Tip #2 – Using Individual Post RSS Feeds

Being able to select an RSS feed for single posts 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 specific post items is shown below:

(Feed For Specific Post)

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 a post URL, WordPress will return the comments for that post, not actual content of the post itself.

Tip #3 – Displaying Category RSS Feeds

Some your site users may only be interested in syndicating content from a specific post category. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.

WordPress allows you to create individual category feeds.

Just use the format below:

(Feed format for post categories)

Select and copy the category URL …

(Select and copy your category URL …)

Append “feed” to the end of it …

(Format for WordPress category feed)

The feed will now only contain content posted under this 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 An RSS Feeds List

You can publish an RSS feeds page that allows readers to subscribe only to content in the categories they are interested in, just like the larger websites do …

(Provide A Feeds List)

All you need to do is link an RSS button graphic to a category feed URL and then create a table or a list of all your feeds on a separate page …

(RSS graphic. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)

To learn more about creating tables in WordPress content, go here:

• Inserting Tables Into Your Content Easily With WordPress

WordPress RSS – Additional Notes

You can customize your RSS in a number of ways, such as adding videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these feed customizations require code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to configure several feed types without touching code. Here are some examples of custom feed formats you can use …

(WordPress RSS – Feed Formats)

For your convenience, here are the feed types, descriptions, and feed examples shown above:

• Feed Type: All Posts
• Description: Content feed – Feed that displays your latest post entries
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/

• Feed Type: All Comments
• Description: Comments feed – Includes the latest comments left on your website or blog
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts
• Description: Feed containing a specific post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/blog-post-title/feed/

• Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
• Description: Displays the latest comments made on a single post entry
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-blog-post/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Day – Contains latest posts in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/01/16/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Month – RSS feed that displays latest items in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2017/08/feed/

• Feed Type: Archives
• Description: Year – Displays latest entries in each archive
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/feed/

• Feed Type: Search Results
• Description: Displays latest posts for a search query
• Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/

• Feed Type: Custom Post Type
• Description: RSS feed containing the 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. Make sure you place a subscribe button image in a visible location …

(Remember to promote your feeds!)

Also, keep in mind that online users will only syndicate your content if you provide your subscribers with high-quality content that will add value to their sites and benefit their visitors.

(Easily add content from other sites and get other sites 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 RSS feed 🙂

Additional Resources:

• Feed Images – Visit sites like FeedIcons.com or search online (e.g. “free RSS icons”, “rss logo download”, etc.) for sites containing downloadable RSS icons.
• RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board is an independent organization with three primary duties: publishing RSS specifications, guiding developers who create RSS applications and broadening general public understanding of RSS.
• Wikipedia/RSS – Learn more about the benefits of using RSS.
• WordPress Codex – WordPress documentation and information site. Go here to learn more about using WordPress RSS feeds.

Congratulations! Now you know where 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 using RSS.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you get better results online. To read more about using WordPress for a business web site please click on links to visit our related posts section.

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