WordPress Add Content to RSS Feed

Recently, I wanted to add content to each item in the RSS feed on a WordPress site. This could be something like:

Hire Sal

If you enjoyed this article, have you considered hiring Sal to help with your project?

To add this, we can leverage the WordPress filter the_content_feed. The code would look something like

add_filter( 'the_content_feed', 'fe_the_content_feed_add_hire_sal_blurb' );

function fe_the_content_feed_add_hire_sal_blurb( $content ) {

    $hire_sal_blurb = "\n<h3>Hire Sal</h3>\n" 
        . '<p>If you enjoyed this article, have you considered '
        . '<a href="https://ironcodestudio.com/contact-us/">hiring Sal</a> '
        . "to help with your project?</p>\n";

    return $content . $hire_sal_blurb;
}

Testing

There are a couple of challenges with testing RSS feeds.

Caching

Web browsers cache RSS feeds aggressively, so if you’re looking at the feed in the browser (e.g. https://salferrarello.com/feed/) your updates won’t show up in a timely manner.

If you’re familiar with Chrome developer tools, you can use it to Disable cache (while DevTools is open) to insure you are loading the most recent version. Alternatively, you can use the command line tool curl to view the feed without caching.

curl https://salferrarello.com/feed/

Local Development

For developing locally and previewing the rendered RSS feed, I find Vienna RSS Reader to be a good tool. Generally I read RSS feeds with an online RSS Reader (Feedbin) but an online RSS Reader doesn’t work for a local feed.

Note: When using Vienna, you will have to delete the feed and re-add it to clear the cache for a feed.

Image Credits:

RSS Icon and Post It

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.