How to Limit the Number of Posts in WordPress RSS Feed
February 22. 2022
If you are using RSS to grow your WordPress website, you’ve probably noticed that, by default, it displays the ten most recent posts in its feed. In case that’s too much or too little for you, don’t worry, as there are simple ways to change it. In this article, we’ll explain in detail how to limit the number of posts in the WordPress RSS feed. But first, we’ll let you know what RSS is, how to use it and how will you benefit from using it.
On the other hand, we fully understand how you might have more important business-related tasks to handle. As you don’t want your website to stay neglected, why not get in touch with a reputable WordPress maintenance team? You can focus on whatever you need to while knowing your website is in great hands.
What is RSS and how to use it in WordPress?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is a type of web feed that helped websites notify subscribers about new posts. Before, when you wanted to keep track of updates on your favorite websites, you needed to bookmark them and visit them regularly. There was no easier way to check for recent updates and posts.
This problem was solved with an RSS feed. It allowed users to easily keep track of their favorite pages without having to manually check the website each time. Also, RSS feeds work in a way that allows publishers to automatically syndicate their new content. This way, subscribers are able to read the content in ther email or feed reader.
How to use RSS in WordPress?
All WordPress websites and blogs come with built-in support for RSS feeds which means that each page of your website contains a meta tag that directs to your website’s RSS feed location. RSS publishes your latest content in a structured XML document. This document can contain either a full article or just a summary. It can also contain metadata such as the date the article was published, author’s name, category, and similar. As RSS feeds are published in the XML markup language, even the smallest mistake can make them unreadable. It will even prevent users from seeing your new content in their feeds.
There are plenty of ways to customize and optimize your website RSS feed in a way that will protect your content and invite more traffic at the same time. By adding featured images or creating an RSS feed site map, you’ll make your WordPress website more user-friendly and inviting.
You can also use plugins such as RSS Aggregator or Smash Balloon Social Post Feed to further boost user engagement and increase traffic. They can be used to add social buttons, too. They can even pull in your social media content and display it in your RSS feed.
Why use RSS in WordPress?
There are plenty of reasons to use RSS in WordPress. Here are just some of the benefits of RSS feed:
- RSS makes it much easier for people to subscribe to your content. Using an RSS feed, your subscribers can receive updates from your website directly on their devices.
- You’ll also improve user experience as subscribers will no longer need to bookmark your website’s URL and manually look for new content each time. Instead, they’ll be able to bring their favorite content to a central location and read their favorite websites all at once.
- Using RSS makes your content portable meaning that subscribers can even read it while offline.
- RSS feed can help you build a base of loyal followers around your website as RSS subscribers are often more likely to share your content on their social media platforms.
A simple way to limit the number of posts in the WordPress RSS feed
As we mentioned, by default WordPress will display the ten most recent posts in your main RSS feed. However, this might be too much or too little for you. If you want to change it, there is a simple way to limit the number of posts in the WordPress RSS feed.
The first thing you need to do is to go to your WordPress admin dashboard, click on “Settings” and then “Reading“. Look for “Syndication feeds show the most recent” as next to it, you’ll need to change the value to the number of posts you want to be visible in your RSS feed.
Just below this option, you’ll be able to choose if you want your RSS feed to display full texts or excerpts of posts. Choosing excerpts is definitely a better way as it will reduce the size of the RSS feed and increase your page views.
Make sure to click on “Save changes” to store your settings and after that, you’ve successfully limited the number of posts in your website’s RSS feed. It’s as simple as that!
Create an RSS sitemap for search engines
One of the most common reasons for changing the number of posts in the RSS feed is higher search engine visibility. To achieve this, avoid increasing the number of posts on your RSS feed.
Most popular search engines such as Google or Bing support RSS sitemaps. RSS sitemap provides search engines with the latest posts from your website. This way, it helps search engines to quickly find the updated posts on your website. The best part is that you can set a completely different limit of posts you want it to include. This will not affect the number of posts in your main WordPress RSS feed.
Final thoughts
We hope our article helped you learn how to limit the number of posts in the WordPress RSS feed. In case you’re still not using RSS on your WordPress website, we hope we were able to change your mind. It’s a very simple way to boost user experience and make it easier for subscribers to keep track of the new content. There are really no reasons against taking advantage of RSS as it can only help you grow and increase traffic. Alternatively, you can always count on an experienced and reliable WordPress website maintenance team who can do all of this for you. You can simply sit back, relax, and watch the number of your website subscribers going up!