What is WordPress RSS Feed and How to Use It in 2022

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is how well it connects with a variety of third-party internet platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Trello, and Dropbox. It also works well with RSS, besides these and other services.

If you’re a blogger, you’ve probably seen an orange icon labeled RSS feed. You’ve come to the right place if you’ve ever wondered what WordPress RSS feed is and how you can utilize it to build your WP blog.

Thousands of users rely on RSS technology to keep track of their favorite sites. Let’s look at how you may use RSS feeds in WordPress to present content relevant to the user.

Also Read :- How to Disable RSS Feeds in WordPress (2022) An Easy Guide

What is RSS?

RSS is a form of web feed. It allows users and software to get regular updates from their favorite website or blog. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. The feed, or RSS feed, is another name for it. RSS is a time-tested technology that benefits both publishers and subscribers.

Before, if you wanted to keep track of updates on your favorite website on the internet, you had to bookmark it and check it to see any updates.

This problem was overcome by RSS feeds. It allowed users to keep track of their favorite sites without having to visit them each time. Bloggers and publishers can use RSS to syndicate their content so that it can be read in email, feed readers, and other devices.

You can get updates in your web browser (not Chrome), feed readers, or desktop apps for free. All you’ll need is an internet connection and a feed reader such as Feedly. You can also accept RSS feeds directly in WP websites if you’re a WordPress website owner.

WordPress provides various plugins to help you display feeds on your website. Such as Feedzy RSS Lite. It displays basic RSS with shortcodes and widgets.

But, pro features may be required to use RSS in WordPress more effectively. Such as-

• keyword filtering
• tracking tags
• multiple templates
• full-text feeds
• Feed to Post (autoblogging)
• WordAI integration
• product prices importer
• extraction of various elements from custom feed tags
• Elementor and WP block editor integration, and more

What Is an RSS Feed in WordPress and How Does It Work?

RSS feeds offer your most recent content in a structured XML format. This feed comprises whole articles or summaries, as well as metadata for each item. Such as date, author, category, and so on. An RSS feed reader can then fetch and read this XML document. For all operating systems, computers, and mobile devices, there is an RSS feed reader software.

RSS feeds are built-in to WordPress, and each page you publish can point readers to your RSS feed. A meta tag on each page of your WordPress site points to the address of your website’s RSS feed. Subscribers need the help of a program called a feed reader or aggregator to sign up for RSS feeds.

You can look for feeds that are relevant to your website and add them to your site. You can use keywords to filter the feeds if you like. There are various methods to use RSS feeds on your website once you’ve put them up in WordPress. For example, you can do the following:

• Without leaving your WordPress dashboard, collect tidbits from many sources and display them on your website. Gathering what people have to say about your company in the media or on social media is one example. After filtering, you can post it in your website’s About Me or Testimonials sections.
• By curating content from other websites, you may construct an entire website of your own. Autoblogging sites are a fantastic example. You can even import content from RSS feeds and publish it as individual articles on your blog.
• You can connect to a specific feed to keep your readers informed about what’s relevant to them. For example, on a company website, you can use a tracker to display your company’s live stock values.
• By automatically posting content from the feeds on your social network, you can increase your presence on social media forums.

But, when employing RSS feeds, you should be aware of the legal implications. You may need to provide credit to the rightful owners of the content or get permission to use the feeds commercially.

Benefits of RSS

Users can easily subscribe to your content via RSS. They can get updates from your blog or website immediately in their feed readers, desktop programs, and a variety of other devices by using an RSS feed.

Subscribers don’t need to remember your website’s URL. They can save it to a central location where they can browse all their favorite websites at once.

Your content becomes portable as well. This allows your subscribers to read it while offline.

RSS feeds aids in the development and maintenance of a loyal following for your blog. Subscribers to your RSS feed are more inclined to share your content on social media.

Using RSS feeds and IFTTT, many readers automatically share new content.

You can subscribe to your favorite websites and read them all in one spot if you’re a user. This allows you to scan your favorite news and blog sites rapidly. If you wish to post a blog comment, you can do so by going to the specific article and leaving your remark there.

Most current feed readers allow you to categorize and classify your reading lists. You can significantly improve your reading time if you use RSS well.

Also Read :- Ultimate Guide to Create RSS Feed for Each Category in WordPress 2022

RSS feeds in WordPress- Some specific uses

In WordPress, there are a few specific uses for RSS feeds.

Let’s have a look at some creative methods to use RSS feeds in WordPress.

Online media aggregators

The Drudge Report is a great place to start. We now understand how to use RSS feeds in WP to explore various websites and compile all relevant news in one location. You may gather information from various sources, organize it, and present it in a user-friendly style. Before publishing, you can utilize plugins to automatically create WordPress posts for this stream of content, as well as add to it.

Online retailers

Product categories for online store shelves can be sourced. RSS subscriptions for specific goods and services are available on sites like Craigslist.

Simply type the product’s name into the search field and scroll to the bottom of the page to find it. You’ll notice an RSS button that allows you to subscribe to the product’s classifieds list.

If you’re a vehicle dealer, for example, you can see the potential in this. A constant supply of cars will be accessible to you to offer to your customers without much work on your part.

Google Alerts

Make a Google Alerts list for your company name. By keeping track of your company’s mentions in the press and other media forums, you can better manage your company’s reputation.

A tutorial on how to set up the alerts may be found on Google. You can also change the default email delivery to RSS Feed in the Settings. You can utilize the feed to build material for a page on your website about your company in the media by filtering it.

Keep tabs on stock prices or currency exchange rates.

You can track specific stocks, currencies, or worldwide stock indices, by creating a customized RSS feed. Nasdaq, for example, offers stock quote feeds for the Top 5 Up/Down on Unusual Volume. You can even create your own unique stock quote stream using it.

This WordPress RSS feeds might be pretty helpful for a finance-related website. They can also assist you in putting a widget on your home screen that shows the current stock price of your company’s shares.

Discount and coupon websites

RSS feeds in WP may keep a discount or coupon website up to date with the latest offers and best discounts. You may show content from RSS feeds from sites like CouponSurfer on your website by subscribing to them. Some websites allow you to input your zip code to receive notifications about offers.

Motivational Quotes

Use motivational quotations from sites like BrainyQuote to inspire your readers. Once you’ve added the feed to your WordPress site, you’ll get new quotes every day without having to do any work.

To display the quotes in a widget, a specific WordPress plugin is provided. Similarly, a word a day can educate readers, or a joke a day can help them start their day with a smile.

Weather forecasts

Provide weather updates on a frequent basis to keep your readers informed. Regular updates, for example, are provided via feeds from Weatherzone. It is a service that provides weather information for most Australian regions.

You can subscribe to local weather updates by clicking the RSS icon and entering your postcode. Similar weather services are likely to be found in other parts of the world.

This will be useful for any website that has anything to do with the outdoors. Such as an event management company, a sports website, or an agriculture-related business. You can, of course, create a separate weather website. But, you may end up paying commercial rates for the various streams in that situation.

Also Read :- Integrate & Use MailChimp With WordPress (2022) An Easy Guide

Types Of RSS Feed

RSS 0.91, RSS 0.92, and RSS 2.0 are the three most often used RSS revisions for producing feeds. All three types should be read correctly by any modern RSS feed reader. There are a few additional standards that fall somewhere in the middle of these three.

RSS 0.91, RSS 0.92, and RSS 2.0 are the three most often used RSS revisions for producing feeds. All three types should be read correctly by any modern RSS feed reader. There are a few more standards that fall somewhere in the middle of these three.

RSS 0.91 format is the most basic and straightforward. For a variety of reasons, it is also the most restricted. RSS 0.91 only has a limited set of functionality. Such as a maximum of 15 items in a single feed and a limit of 100 and 500 characters for titles and descriptions. In RSS 0.91, HTML cannot be used in item descriptions. The specification only allows plain text. Due to this, RSS 0.91 is an extremely strict format. It requires each item to have only one link, a title, and potentially a description, with no deviations.

RSS 0.92 is a continuation of RSS 0.91. It addresses many of the limitations of the previous version. It also adds HTML code support to the item’s ‘description’ area. Items no longer need a title or link because the description can now serve as both a title and a link. With the addition of an optional ‘enclosure’ tag, an RSS 0.92 feed can now include files that the user can download along with the item. RSS 0.92 removes all length limits on the different text fields that existed in RSS 0.91.

RSS 2.0 is a separate branch of the RSS ‘tree’ than RSS 0.92, despite the fact that it was also derived from RSS 0.91. It incorporates all the changes made in RSS 0.92, as well as a few new features such as support for secure sites, GUIDs, and feed categorization.

We are now aware that there are various types of feeds available. But does it make a difference? We don’t think so, though someone with a technical interest in feeds might disagree. But, if you are a typical user, you should not be concerned.

How to Read Your Favorite Websites Using RSS Feeds?

Feed readers are apps that allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds. There are a variety of free feed readers available for all major operating systems and smartphones.

Listed below are just a few of the best RSS feed reader apps available.

• Feedly is a website that allows you to subscribe to many feeds (Web, Browser Add-ons, iOS, Android, Kindle)
• Innoreader is a program that allows you to read books on your computer (Web, Android, iOS)
• Bloglovin’ (Web, Android, iOS)

Feedly is a service that we suggest. It’s accessible as a mobile app for iOS, Android, and Kindle devices, as well as a browser add-on.

Feedly allows you to sync your RSS subscriptions across all your devices and resume reading from where you left off. It’s easy to add your favorite websites to Feedly. Simply input the website’s URL and click the Follow button to subscribe.

You can search for themes that interest you and subscribe to popular sites on those topics in most feed readers. You can also divide your favorite websites into categories based on their content. Feed readers like Feedly have options for printing, sharing, and emailing content that you find interesting.

Three Useful RSS Feed Plugins for WordPress

WordPress comes with built-in RSS feeds and displays them by default. But, plugins can provide a lot more flexibility. Let’s have a look at three viable alternatives.

Feedzy

Feedzy is one of the most popular RSS feed plugins for WordPress. You can import and show an endless number of feeds on your website with it. You can use it to automate blogging by distributing handpicked information from all over the internet.

Feedzy’s free edition includes the following major features:

• Feed items can be converted to pages, posts, and custom post kinds.
• Use blocks, shortcodes, or widgets to display feeds.
• Cache feeds to speed uploading.
• Use photos to accompany feed articles.

You can also do the following with the premium version:

• To import specific content, use keyword filters.
• For each feed, create numerous templates.
• Import several feeds from various sources automatically (done manually in the free version).
• Add affiliate or referral IDs to your feed links automatically.

You’ll want to go to Feedzy > Import Posts once Feedzy is installed and functional. Then select Import Posts from the drop-down menu:

You can now start the process of adding feeds to your website.

RSSImport

You can use RSSImport to import feeds into your WordPress site. It can be accessed by a widget, shortcodes, or PHP.

With its provided shortcodes, this tool provides a lot of freedom, with various possibilities for modifying them. Here’s what you could create:

[RSSImport display=”25″ feedurl=”https://abc.com/feed/” use_simplepie=”true”]

A theme template, such as sidebar.php or single.php, can also contain PHP code. Take the following scenario:

<!–?php RSSImport(10, ‘https://abc.com/feed/’); ?–>

You may insert your shortcodes anywhere on a post or page to display your .feed

Category-Specific RSS Feed Subscription

Category-Specific RSS Feed Subscription is not like the other plugins we’ve looked at thus far. It gives your users more control over the subscriptions they receive, and it does so based on your classifications. If you post content in different categories, such as “Aeronautics,” “Renewable Energy,” and “Film,” your users can subscribe to simply one or all of them.

You can use this plugin to:

• Create RSS feeds for certain categories.
• Make menus for tags-specific feeds.
• Along with your content, show the RSS feed for each tag.
• Custom categories can be linked to external feeds.

After you’ve installed the plugin, go to Settings > Category-Specific RSS to view a list of all the categories for which you can build a feed. The feed menus can then be added to your site using widgets, shortcodes, and a few lines of PHP.

WordPress RSS Feeds Without Plugins

The RSS feed plugins described above are undeniably helpful. But it is possible to set up your website’s RSS feed without them.

Although the directions are straightforward, there are a few things to keep in mind before getting started. To begin, make a backup of your website. This ensures that if a mistake occurs, you may restore to the most recent version of WordPress.

Second, you should have a working knowledge of WordPress coding and development. If you don’t, it’s recommended to practice on a local WordPress install first. This is to make sure you understand the process before messing with your live site.

Also Read :- Best Guide to Find Your WordPress Login URL (2022)

Importing RSS Feeds into WordPress

You might want to add RSS feeds to your WordPress site as well. You could include those feeds in a blog post or add them to your sidebar. This is simple to do using WordPress plugins.

Check out RSSImport for a great example. You can use PHP, a widget, or a shortcode to add RSS feeds with this plugin installed. You can even configure how your RSS feed operates with RSSImport’s parameters.

Optimize Your RSS Feeds

Users can subscribe to your RSS feed to stay up to date on your latest material. As a result, you’ll want to make it as simple to use as possible, which will increase your subscriptions.

Showing summaries rather than whole items in your feed is one way to do this. This ensures that readers will come to your website to read the information.

For this purpose, WordPress has a built-in setting.

Simply go to Settings > Reading.

Select Summary under For each article in a feed, show.

You can also use the Category-Certain RSS Feed Subscription plugin. It allows people to subscribe to specific categories or tags.

If you have a multi-author blog, you may also allow your followers to subscribe to their favorite authors.

An author’s feed will look like this:

http://example.com/author/matteo/feed/

You can even have your authors’ profiles or email signatures contain links to their RSS feeds.

Conclusion

WordPress comes with an RSS feed by default, and you may quickly access yours. You can have even more control over it with the use of plugins like Feedzy RSS Feeds, RSSImport, and Category-Specific RSS Feed Subscription.

RSS feeds, as we’ve seen, can be beneficial in a variety of situations, so they’re far from dead. We hope this article helped you understand what RSS is and how to use it in WordPress to develop your business.