Need to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts? There are tons of reasons you might need to bring in external RSS feeds to your WordPress site. Just to name a few:
With RSS feeds, you can do neat stuff like create a news aggregator, import YouTube videos or Instagram photos, showcase upcoming events from different sources, and lots more.
But all of those possibilities are only open to you if you have the ability to import RSS feeds into WordPress as actual WordPress posts. Plenty of plugins let you create a list of RSS feeds – but that’s no good for more advanced uses.
There’s no way around it – to get the most from external RSS feeds, you need to be able to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts. And I’m going to show you exactly how you can do that using our very own Feedzy plugin.
What you’ll need to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts
While the free version of our Feedzy plugin is helpful for displaying basic RSS feeds via shortcodes and widgets, you’ll need the Business version of Feedzy to actually import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts.
The Business version costs $149 and allows you to do everything you need. Beyond that, I’m also assuming you have a working WordPress blog to install the plugin on.
As long as you have those two things, you’re ready to get started!
Step 1: Install Feedzy and activate your license
To get started, you need to install both Feedzy Lite and Feedzy Pro. Feedzy Pro actually functions as an add-on, so it needs the free version to operate.
Once you have both plugins installed and activated, head to Settings → General and scroll down to the Feedzy RSS Feeds Premium license box to activate your Feedzy Pro version (you can find your license key in your Themeisle account).
Step 2: Enter your RSS feed source(s)
Next up, you’re ready to specify the RSS feeds you’d like to import WordPress posts from.
Need help finding an RSS feed? Here are a few tips:
- For WordPress blogs, you can almost always append
/feed
to the end of a URL to get the RSS feed. - Many sites with RSS feeds display the RSS feed icon (you can see an example of the RSS icon in the Feedzy graphic from the previous section).
- You can view a site’s source code with your browser’s developer tools and search for “rss” in the code.
Then, to make sure you’ve found a working RSS feed, you can use this free RSS feed validation tool.
Once you have the feed(s) that you’d like to import, head to Feedzy RSS → Import Posts. Give it a name so that you can remember what you’re importing and paste the RSS feed URL into the box. You can separate multiple feed URLs with commas:
Then click Next.
Step 3: Add filters to your feed
One neat thing about Feedzy is that it lets you add keyword filters to your RSS feeds. With these filters, you can either:
- Only import posts that include certain keywords
- Import all posts EXCEPT those that contain certain keywords
You don’t need to use these filters, but they’re a good way to get some control over exactly when to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts.
Enter your keywords as desired. For example, with the example configuration I created below, Feedzy will not import any posts that contain the phrases “for sale” or “buy now”:
Then click Next.
Step 4: Assign feed imports to post elements
Now it’s time for the final, and most time-consuming, step. You need to map the information from your RSS feed to the information in your WordPress post.
For example, you can pick what information to use as the title of your WordPress post, among other options.
As part of this process, you can use tags to import dynamic information. For example, if you make your Post Title equal to the [#item_title]
tag, Feedzy will automatically insert the title of the RSS feed entry as your WordPress post’s title.
Let’s look at a more detailed example. Say you want to import the RSS feed to WordPress:
- As a normal WordPress post
- In the category of News Aggregation
- With the RSS feed entry title as the WordPress post title
- With the original RSS feed date as the WordPress publish date
- And the original RSS content as the WordPress post content
- With the same featured image as the RSS feed image (if available)
To do that, you’d set things up like this:
Note that you can use the Insert Tag dropdown to easily add dynamic tags. You don’t need to try to manually type them in.
And you can also Add custom fields at the bottom, though that’s an advanced feature that you don’t need to touch unless you’re already familiar with what custom fields are.
Once you’ve got everything configured, just click Save & Activate at the bottom to start importing posts.
Note – Feedzy runs every hour. So you’ll need to wait one hour before Feedzy will begin to import your posts.
After an hour, you should start to see posts that meet your requirements start to show up on your blog.
Wrapping things up
With Feedzy Pro, it’s easy to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts. All you need to do is:
- Choose the RSS feed(s) you want to pull content from
- Set up keyword filtering (optional)
- Map the content from your RSS feed to your WordPress posts’ details
And then Feedzy Pro will automatically check for new posts every hour and import them to your blog.
Have any questions about how to import RSS feeds into WordPress as posts? Leave them in the comments and we’ll try to help out!
Hi, can Feedzy RSS import full-text articles from shortened RSS feeds?
Hey, yes, the complete text import was recently introduced in the ‘Feed to Post’ feature https://themeisle.com/plugins/feedzy-rss-feeds/
Good luck with your site!
Hello. Does the plugin has options that would allow for selecting only one post from imported RSS posts list and publishing it in other category?
Hey, Feedzy cannot (yet) control the number of items it fetches from the feed (it will create as many posts as the number of items in the feed).
It’s in the roadmap, but don’t tell our competitors 😀
HI, I got the feedzy upgrade. however, the content is not pulled from the feed into the posts. It works well with the normal feed function but not the feed to post. In my feed, the content description is in a summary field, not in a content field. How can I pull that into a post?
Hi, sorry to hear you’re having difficulties with the plugin. Please reach out to our technical support team via https://themeisle.com/contact/ to get immediate help. Thank you!
Thanks
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