How to Add RSS Feeds to WordPress (As Posts or Lists)

Want to add RSS (really simple syndication) feeds to your WordPress website?

You can find RSS feeds for everything from blog posts to eCommerce products, job listings, YouTube videos, and more.

Then there are people who use feed readers like Feedly, Feedburner, and social media platforms.

Being able to display content from these RSS feeds opens up a whole new world for your WordPress site. You could build a news aggregator, create a content hub, aggregate job listings, plus a lot more.

But to set up all those use cases, you need a way to add RSS feeds to your WordPress site, which is what we’ll cover in this post.

First, we’ll discuss two different ways that you can go about adding RSS feeds to a WordPress website. Then, we’ll show you exactly what you need to use RSS feeds on WordPress and how to set everything up.

How Do You Want to Add RSS Feeds to WordPress?

There are two high-level ways that you can add RSS feeds to WordPress:

1. You can list the most recent content from an RSS feed in a dynamic widget or layout using an RSS feed plugin. Your visitors can interact with the content, but the content isn’t permanently stored on your site. That is, once new feed items replace the older ones, those older items are gone for good.
2. You can import RSS feed items as actual posts on your WordPress site with an RSS feed plugin. That is, the feed items will show up as actual posts in the WordPress dashboard, which you can edit if needed. Basically, your imported content will be there permanently (or until you have it deleted).

Neither approach is “better” than the other – it just depends on your specific needs.

If you just want to create a simple widget or layout that lets you display the latest feed items, you’ll probably be fine with the first approach. Let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress sites.

Personal Finance Blogs is an example of this first approach. It lists the latest blog posts from blogs in the personal finance space, but each list item just links directly to the source – each item is not permanently stored on the Personal Finance Blogs site:

On the other hand, if you want to create a content curation site, news aggregator, or other similar use cases, you’ll probably want the second approach.

Travel Blogger Community is an example of the second approach:

While it looks similar to Personal Finance Blogs at first, the key difference is that each item links to a single post that’s still on the Travel Blogger Community site. That page includes a brief excerpt as well as a link to the original source.

In more WordPress-specific terms, each feed item is an actual blog post on the Travel Blogger Community site (and stored in the database).

What You Need to Add RSS Feeds to WordPress

Since you can use RSS feeds on any WordPress site, you can use the free WP RSS Aggregator plugin, which is available at WordPress.org and has been praised by many blogs including WP Beginner and Qode Interactive.

WP RSS Aggregator WordPress plugin lets you take any valid RSS feed and display it on your WordPress site in a number of different ways.

The free version lets you display a simple list of RSS feed items, with the option to purchase some premium add-ons to further control the output of your feed content (like including featured images).

If you want to add RSS feed items as actual WordPress posts instead of in a widget, you can purchase the Feed to Post add-on. Feed to Post extends the core WP RSS Aggregator plugin with the ability to import each feed item as its own post on your WordPress site.

For the best value, you can get the Feed to Post add-on as part of the Pro bundle, which includes access to all add-ons.

Below, we’ll show you how to set up both the core WP RSS Aggregator plugin, as well as the Feed to Post add-on.

How to Add RSS Feeds to WordPress

Below, we’ll take you through how to add RSS feeds to WordPress using the free version of WP RSS Aggregator and, depending on your feature needs, some of the premium add-ons. This will help you gain attention from bloggers who use feed readers like Feedly, Feedburner, or their favorite websites that make up a custom feed.

1. Find the RSS Feed URL

Before you can add anything to your WordPress blog, you first need to find the RSS feed(s) for your content source(s) if you haven’t done so already.

Struggling to find the URL in Google Chrome? Here are some tips to find a site’s RSS feed.

2. Configure WP RSS Aggregator

Once you have the URL for the RSS feed that you want to add to your WordPress RSS feed, you can use WP RSS Aggregator to import it to your site.

Again, there are two ways that you can add your RSS feed to your WordPress RSS feed:

• A list
• As actual WordPress posts

We’ll show you how to accomplish both methods…

How to Import RSS Feed Items as a List

To add RSS feed items as a list, you can use the free version of WP RSS Aggregator at WordPress.org.

Once you install the WordPress RSS feed plugin, you can follow the simple start wizard or go to RSS Aggregator → Feed Sources → Add New to create your first RSS feed. We’ll show you the regular feed creation tool, as this is what you’ll use most of the time. This way you won’t have to edit your WordPress theme.

Either way, all you need to do is paste in the URL to your RSS feed. You can also configure a limit for feed items (older items beyond the limit will be permanently removed as newer items come in).

You can configure a few additional options if desired, but the defaults are normally fine. Then, click Publish Feed:

You should then see a list of the most recent items in the Feed Preview section, as well as a shortcode that you can use to display this feed:

To display content from this RSS feed on the front-end of your site, you can use the shortcode. 

Or, if you’re using the new WordPress block editor, Gutenberg, you can use the WP RSS Aggregator Feeds block to display your RSS widget.

In the Block settings, you’ll also be able to control how your feed displays, like adding pagination or choosing a different display template:

Once you publish a page with either the shortcode or block, visitors will be able to see the RSS feed content on the front-end of your site, like on the home page, and in Google:

If you want to change the front-end display of your RSS feed items for new content, you can create your own templates by visiting RSS Aggregator → Templates → Add New:

For more template customization options (like including image thumbnails), you can purchase the Templates add-on, which is also available as part of the Basic plan.

How to Import RSS Feed Items as WordPress Posts

If you want to add RSS feed items to your site as actual WordPress posts, you’ll also need the Feed to Post add-on for WP RSS Aggregator. 

You can purchase the add-on individually. Or, for better value, you can purchase the Pro plan, which also gets you access to other useful add-ons to help you force the full text of an RSS feed, filter feed items by keywords, and more things that help with your SEO.

Once you’ve installed the Feed to Post add-on alongside the free RSS feed plugin, you can go to RSS Aggregator → Feed Sources → Add New to add your RSS feed.

Now, you’ll get several new settings areas to configure how your RSS feed to post functionality works.

For example, you’ll be able to:

• Choose which post type to use (e.g. blog posts vs a custom post type).
• Choose whether to publish feed items right away or hold them for manual action (save as drafts or another post status).
• Assign taxonomies and authors to feed items.
• Prepend or append content to content from the feed (like adding a credit link to the source for a rich site summary).
• Remove certain content from the feed using Extraction Rules.

To learn more about how all of these settings work, you can consult the Feed to Post knowledge base or check out our complete guide to importing RSS feeds as WordPress posts.

Once you configure the settings and publish your feed, WP RSS Aggregator will start importing content according to your settings.

For example, if you import feed items as blog posts, they’ll show up in the Posts area of your WordPress dashboard.

If you chose to hold feed items as drafts (rather than publishing them immediately), you’d then need to go and manually publish new posts to make them live.

Start Adding RSS Feeds to WordPress Today

No matter whether you want to add a simple list of RSS feed items to WordPress or import feed items as actual WordPress posts, the WP RSS Aggregator plugin can help.

To add a basic list of the latest items from a feed to WordPress, you can use the free core plugin at WordPress.org. If you want more control over the output, like being able to include image thumbnails, you can upgrade to the Basic plan for $59 or purchase the Templates add-on for $39.

If you want to add RSS feed items to WordPress as actual posts, you can use the Feed to Post add-on to import feed items to any post type. You can purchase the standalone Feed to Post add-on for $79. Or, for the best value, consider upgrading to the Pro plan for $149 to also get access to:

• Keyword Filtering – use keywords to control what content you import (either by including or excluding feed items with certain keywords)
• Full Text RSS Feeds – import the full text of RSS feed items even if the source doesn’t include the full text in the feeds.
• Categories – divide RSS feed sources into different categories.
• Templates – create different layouts to display lists or grids of content anywhere on your site.

Have any questions about how to add RSS feeds to your WordPress site? Leave a comment!