Displaying eye-catching images in your WordPress site‘s RSS feeds is a great way to drive more clicks, boost engagement, and increase readership.
As someone who‘s been working with RSS feeds for over 15 years, I can tell you that small customizations like adding post thumbnails can really move the needle!
In this post, I‘ll walk you step-by-step through how to quickly add thumbnail images to your WordPress RSS feeds. I‘ll also dig deeper into RSS feeds themselves, from code samples to analytics.
My goal is to provide all the information you need as a total beginner, but also share some more advanced technical insights from my experience for those looking to take a deeper dive!
Contents
Why RSS Feeds Still Matter in 2022
Before we get into the how-to, let‘s briefly go over what RSS is and why it‘s still relevant in 2022.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows other sites and applications to grab your newest published content via a web feed for display.
Some examples where your RSS feed might be used:
- Apps like Feedly, Inoreader, Feedbin
- News aggregators like Google News, Apple News, SmartNews
- Websites and platforms pulling in syndicated content
- Podcatchers and third party services utilizing feeds
- Email subscribers getting posts delivered to their inbox
But does anyone still use RSS in 2022? Absolutely.
While it doesn‘t get as much media attention as social networks, RSS remains popular both for publishers distributing content and readers consuming it.
Some stats:
- Over 50 million monthly active Feedly users in 2022
- 145,000+ websites have RSS feeds tracked by Feedspot
- Google News has around 90 million monthly users
For niche sites, RSS plays an especially crucial role. Tech blogs, news outlets, podcasters, and other creators rely heavily on quality RSS feeds to reach their audience.
Even major sites like The New York Times, Wired, Financial Times, and more still publish RSS feeds.
In other words, RSS certainly isn‘t dying anytime soon! Optimizing your site‘s feed remains important.
Why Add Images to Your WordPress RSS Feed?
Now that we‘ve established RSS feeds are still very much relevant, let‘s talk about why adding images is beneficial:
1. Increased Clicks
Post thumbnail images make your RSS feed content far more eye-catching and engaging. This leads to higher click-through rates.
According to research by Kissmetrics, articles with images generate 94% more views than text-only posts.
2. Improved Readership
An image thumbnail preview helps readers better evaluate if they want to read your full article before clicking.
Scanning through a feed of nothing but walls of text is daunting. Images provide visual breathing room.
3. More Traffic
Higher CTRs and readership translate directly into increased referral traffic from your RSS feed subscribers back to your site.
This traffic boost is free and essentially hands-off once you‘ve optimized your feeds with great thumbnails.
Let‘s look at how to implement this on your WordPress site…
How to Add Thumbnails to Your WordPress RSS Feeds
There are two main ways to display post images in your RSS feeds:
- Using a dedicated RSS plugin (simplest method)
- Manually adding a function to your theme‘s code (for advanced users)
I‘ll cover both options in detail below.
Option 1: Use an RSS Plugin to Add Thumbnails
The easiest way to add images to your WordPress RSS feeds is by using a plugin that handles everything automatically.
There are a few good RSS feed plugins out there, but my favorite is Featured Images for RSS Feed.
Here‘s why I recommend it:
- Lightweight with minimal resource usage
- Regularly updated
- 1+ million active installs
- Solid 5 star review average
- Easy configuration
To get started, just install and activate the Featured Images for RSS Feed plugin on your WordPress site.
Configuring the Plugin Settings
Under Settings > Featured Images for RSS Feed, you can configure options like:
- Maximum image width and height (I‘d suggest around 280 x 150 px)
- Left/right image alignment
- Padding around images
- Clickable images
There are also handy tools like bulk deleting all images from your RSS feed or forcing a cache refresh.
The default settings are fine for most sites. I‘d suggest just installing the plugin and leaving things as-is, then come back later to customize once up and running.
Hit Save Changes and thumbnail images will automatically begin showing up in your RSS feed output!
Option 2: Manually Add Thumbnail Support to Your Theme
More advanced WordPress users can also manually add post thumbnail support by coding it directly in your theme files.
However, it‘s easy to accidentally break things when editing sensitive files like functions.php.
That‘s why I strongly recommend using a handy plugin called WPCode to safely add code snippets instead.
WPCode gives you an isolated environment to add any custom code you need, keeping it intact even when switching WordPress themes.
Once installed, go to WPCode > Add New to create a new code snippet.
Next, give the snippet a name like "Add Thumbnails to RSS Feed", choose the PHP code type, and add this function:
function rss_post_thumbnail($content) {
global $post;
if (has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) {
$content = ‘<p>‘ . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID) .‘</p>‘ . get_the_content();
}
return $content;
}
add_filter(‘the_excerpt_rss‘, ‘rss_post_thumbnail‘);
add_filter(‘the_content_feed‘, ‘rss_post_thumbnail‘);This checks if the post has a featured image, and if so, displays it above the content when generating the RSS feed output.
Under Insertion, choose Auto Insert to run the code site-wide automatically.
Hit Save Snippet and your RSS feeds will now have thumbnail images!
For more tips on safely adding custom code snippets in WordPress, see our full WPCode guide.
Testing Your RSS Feed Output
Once you‘ve added thumbnail images to your feeds using one of the above methods, you‘ll want to test things out.
Verify that your images are displaying properly by checking your RSS feed in a few different readers:
- Feedly
- Inoreader
- The Old Reader
- Newsblur
- Digg Reader
- Feedbin
- Google News feed (if applicable)
Also click through from the feeds to your site to ensure the images are linking properly.
Everything looking good? Great! Now let‘s talk about formatting…
Optimizing Post Images for RSS Feeds
How your featured images are configured in WordPress can impact how they appear in your RSS feeds.
Under Settings > Media, take a look at these key settings:
Image Sizes
For RSS feeds specifically, I‘d suggest a moderate width + height like 600 x 400 pixels. Much larger may get downscaled.
Thumbnails
Use a defined crop like 16:9 or 4:3 rather than uncropped for consistency.
Quality
Find a good balance between image quality and file size. I‘d recommend 82-88 quality.
Also, when uploading images for use in your RSS feed:
- Pick an appropriate featured image for each post.
- Use descriptive alt text and title attributes.
- Compress JPGs to optimize file size.
- Strip unnecessary metadata.
Taking a bit of time to properly format and export your images will really maximize their impact in your RSS feeds.
If you want an even more in-depth look at working with images in WordPress, check out our full guides on using the Media Library and choosing featured image sizes.
Tracking RSS Feed Engagement and Clicks
Now that you‘ve spruced up your WordPress RSS feeds with thumbnail images, you‘re probably wondering:
"Do these changes actually work? How can I track ROI and engagement on my RSS feeds?"
Great question! There are a couple ways to monitor your RSS analytics:
1. Use Feed Subscriber Links
When sharing your RSS feed URL, use a unique link for each provider like Feedly or Inoreader.
For example:
- YourSite.com/feed/feedly
- YourSite.com/feed/inoreader
This allows you to segment traffic and engagement in Google Analytics by the subscriber source.
2. Review Aggregator Stats
Many RSS readers like Feedly provide aggregate stats on clicks, subscribers, shares and more.
Login and take a look around for an overview of how your content is performing.
3. Compare Thumbnails vs Text-Only
When adding images, create a separate text-only RSS feed URL to compare against the main feed with thumbnails.
Send 50% of new subscribers to each and observe any differences in CTR or engagement.
Continually experiment! Switch up image placements, sizes, captions and more to see what resonates most with your readers.
Final Thoughts
Optimizing your RSS feeds with engaging featured images is a relatively quick way to boost exposure and readership for your WordPress site.
Whether you choose a dedicated RSS plugin or manually add thumbnail support via code, you‘ll likely notice positive gains in clicks, traffic, and subscriber engagement.
As an avid RSS user myself, I‘m always tinkering away under the hood to improve my site‘s feed output. Feel free to reach out if you have any other RSS-related questions!
