RSS presentation for WordCamp Nashville 2015

1. Is Your Back Porch Ready
for Visitors?
#wcn15rss

2. robincornett.com/wcn15rss

3. Curb Appeal

4. What Does Your Back Porch
Look Like?

5. What is RSS, Anyway?
“RSS is a format for
delivering regularly changing
web content.”
source: whatisrss.com

6. Types of Content on a
WordPress Site
Pages
 Static content
 Not dated
 Not attributed to a
specific author
 Not part of a feed
Posts
 Changing content
 Dated
 Can be attributed to a
specific author
 Part of a feed

7. What’s It Mean to
You?
#wcn15rss

8. As a Reader
 It means you can stay up to date with all of
your favorite authors/bloggers/news
 You can subscribe to a podcast
 You can receive/read posts by email, or by
using a feed reader application like Feedly

9. As a Content Creator
 It means your visitors may not ever be
actually visiting your site.
 Even if you have done nothing to set up your
RSS feed, it exists, and people may be using
it—probably using a feed reader.
 You can win friends and influence people by
making your RSS feed a warm and
welcoming place!

10. Claim It

11. Front End

12. Featured Image
Be aware: setting a
featured image here is
not the same thing as
adding it to your post
content!
This depends on your
theme or plugin.

13. Feed Readers

14. Feed Readers

15. RSS Options
Under Settings >
Reading:
1. Full text
2. Summary

16. Full Text vs. Summary
Full Text
 All the words, images,
etc. in your post content
 Includes both the full
content of your post and
the summary
Summary
 The first 140ish
characters of your
content, OR
 The post excerpt
(created by you)
 (Usually) text only, no
images

17. If your RSS feed is set to
excerpts:

18. Excerpts with Images

19. Step Up Your
Game: Email

20. Email Options for RSS
 Jetpack
 FeedBurner
 MailChimp

21. Jetpack

22. MailChimp

23. RSS Email Drawbacks
 Styling
 Visits
 Images

24. Styling
Using MailChimp, customize an
RSS campaign template with a
header and colors to match your
site’s branding.

25. Visits
You can, if you like, send out
emails with only a summary, or
even just the titles of your posts,
so that people have to click
through to read them.

26. Images
Depending on your RSS settings
in WP, you can take a couple of
different approaches.

27. If your RSS feed is set to
excerpts:

28. …looks like this:

29. If your RSS feed is set to full
content:
(disclaimer: this is my plugin)

30. …looks like this:

31. The Most Important Step
Make sure to add a sign up form to your
website! Options include:
 MailChimp’s signup forms
 Genesis eNews Extended (if you’re using a
Genesis theme)
 a forms plugin like Ninja Forms

32. MailChimp Embedded Form

33. Genesis eNews Extended

34. Ninja Forms*

35. Eat Your Own Dog Food
 Sign up for your own mailing list
 Receive and read your own emails
 Subscribe to your own feed multiple ways

36. #doingitwrong

37. #getitright

38. Resources
 Tutorial to set up MailChimp (full content):
http://robincornett.com/rss-email-mailchimp/
 Tutorial for RSS excerpts:
http://robincornett.com/featured-images-rss-
excerpts/
 Send Images to RSS:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/send-images-
rss/

39. Thank You!
website:
robincornett.com
twitter:
@robincornett
slides:
robincornett.com/wcn15rs
s