Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
II
Using the RSS Widget
In Chapter 3, “Creating Your Blog's Look,” we described the widgets you can use with a
WordPress.com blog in detail, except for the Text widget, which we described in Chapter 6, “Using
HTML in Your Widgets and Blog,” and the RSS widget, which we finally describe here (now that
we've introduced RSS feeds).
Showing an RSS feed from certain sites on your own blog is like a statement of allegiance to groups
that think certain topics are important, or that like particular styles of dealing with them as demon-
strated on the blog you feed in from. You might even find yourself hoping that displaying an RSS
feed from a popular site will encourage them to link back to you, quote you, or otherwise acknowl-
edge your blog's existence.
As we always mention about widgets, it's easy to overdo it. The
RSS widget is one of the widgets that you can use multiple times,
each instance subscribing to a different source.
Because you can subscribe to any WordPress blog, and an awful
lot of other sites, with RSS, you could literally overwhelm your
visitors with RSS widgets. RSS widgets are also easy, cheap, and
unoriginal. So use RSS widgets sparingly; just pick the one or two
sites that are truly indispensable for you and visitors to your
blog. For other sites, use a Text widget, as described in Chapter
6, to create a Favorites list or something similar.
Follow these steps to create an RSS widget:
tip
Try an RSS feed out in an RSS
feed reader yourself as a kind of
trial before inflicting it on your
blog visitors. Not all the blogs or
other sites that are great to visit
are equally great as feeds.
1.
In the Administration area, click the Appearance header, then Widgets. The Widgets page
appears.
2.
Drag the RSS widget from the Available Widgets in the center of the screen to the Sidebar on the
right. The RSS widget opens up.
3.
Enter the RSS feed URL. You might have to dig around a bit to find this; adding
/feed
to the
end of the site's URL often works.
Get this right, or your feed won't work. Consider specialized
feeds such as category feeds if that's more appropriate to your
blog.
tip
To check for an RSS feed, go to a
blog or other website that you
hope has a feed, then add
/feed
to the end of the URL in the web
browser window. If a hard-to-
decipher stream of text and
HTML appears, you've found
your feed!
4.
Optionally, enter a feed title. A good title is either very simply
descriptive or, additionally, indicates the importance of the
feed to your own blog.
5.
Indicate how many items you'd like to display in the feed,
from 1 up to 20. Remember, the average person can remember
4 to 7 things, but is also accustomed to seeing Top 10 lists.
Anything more than a dozen items is simple cruelty aimed at
your poor blog visitor.
