The beauty of Wordpress and it’s Plug-ins, is you can really do a lot with your blog, that does save time. Adding Feeds is one of them, but as I have said before, YOU NEED TO SPEND TIME SETTING IT ALL UP.
First off, you should add several ‘authors’ to your blog, so you can assign a particular niche feed, to a different author. Easy to then add more similar feeds to that particular author, and that makes it easier to track down feed posts as well, if you want to edit or alter the text.
To ADD A USER, you simply go to the sidebar of your admin, click on USERS, then ADD NEW and the registration portion will appear. (magic is such fun, but hey, this isn’t magic, it is work.)
Add the user info in the boxes,
IF you are planning on adding several feeds later on, I’d go ahead and add a few users at one time. It doesn’t matter if you never use them, least they are there when you decide to add a new feed. It will make the feed addition go a bit faster.
I assume you are going to use the plug-in, FEEDWORDPRESS.
In your admin section, down the sidebar on the left, you will see the SYNDICATION option (assuming you have installed the plug-in.) When you click it, a nice form opens, listing all your feeds.
The area we need to concern ourselves with, is the ‘add new source’ zone, which is just above the list of sites. Here is where you will add the url for the feed.
I am going to add a feed from AEBN. When I click the Syndicate next to it, it will then give me a view of the feed, and ask if I want to use this feed.
After clicking ‘use this feed’ you are returned to the main form, but with the feed info listed at the top.
Now comes the fun part. You click the CONFIGURE SETTINGS option listed, and you will get this form showing up.
Now comes the tricky part, sort of. IF you want to simply let it be, and have the new feed added to your default settings, then really you don’t have to do another thing. However, if you want to assign the feed its own tags, it’s own author, then this is where you do it now, to avoid having to clean up the posts later on.
And that isn’t fun, by the way. It is why you need to PLAN AHEAD, otherwise it becomes a cock up.
This is where you get to have some fun, and get your feed assigned to one of the new authors you first set up. In other words, the planning ahead begins to pay off here. You can use this option, EVERYTIME TO ADD A NEW FEED.
This brings up a new form, and be careful here, or you will assign the feed to the wrong author.
And that is basically it.
HOWEVER, there are other options to explore, and you need to consider them carefully, such as where to place the feed, in other words, what category to place them.
IF you followed my earlier suggestions, you will have already set up a category to use, for your feeds. OF COURSE you can simply integrate them into existing categories, but that is a personal choice.
TAGS are near the bottom of the same page, which is where you can add specific tags for the feed. I use rather generic one’s for all my feeds, mainly because I am a lazy git. Hey, a guy has a right to just not work 24/7, and my 3 minutes of not having to do tags for each feed, is well, my break.
The last step is to actually get those feeds into your blog. AND here is also where you can screw it up a bit, and also wind up being very frustrated.
FOR STARTERS, if you don’t pay attention, you will wind up updating all your feeds at once, which is okay, but annoying at times, unless you have a ping optimizer that prevents unnecessary pinging.
You need to find the ‘NEW FEED’ and check it’s box in the list of feeds. This is located when you click ‘syndication‘ in the admin sidebar area.
WHAT YOU DON’T WANT TO DO IS CLICK THE VERY PROMINENT BUTTON TO UPDATE. That will update all your feeds, but you want to look down, for the inconspicuous button that says UPDATE CHECKED. It is just above the list of feeds.
By doing this, you will ONLY UPDATEthe new feed, adding all of its previous posts to your blog. I don’t know, but for myself, I’d rather just add the current post, but unfortunately, I haven’t found that option in this plug in.
Oct 18th by Malcontent