Set it and forget it: Automated WordPress sites for busy (or lazy) people

Set it and forget it: Automated WordPress sites for busy (or lazy) people.

OR How to syndicate RSS feeds inside of WordPress

Introduction

• I’m Brent Morris or Brent the Closet Geek in the podosphere. I’m been a podcaster since late-2005

• I’ve done a bunch of podcasts on and off• The prime reason I’ve ever stopped is laziness

about posting new content• I wanted to automate publishing new content

on my personal site closetgeekshow.ca

Introduction

• Currently doing 4 shows semi-regularly– The Closet Geek Show • closetgeekshow.ca

– The Anger Core • theangercore.com

– The Showhole • theshowhole.com

– Gapage: Conversations with Ken and Brent • gapages.blogspot.ca

Introduction

• I tried a bunch of different plugins and techniques to do this idea

• Settled on using WordPress with the FeedWordpress plugin.

• Today I’ll show you how to set it up and configure it. Once configured, you barely need to touch it.

• Every time an added feed updates, so does your website.

Search for ‘FeedWordPress’ in directory

If you are using the CLI the plugin name is ‘feedwordpress’

Activate FeedWordPress

Click installed plugins on left

FeedWordPress is now ready to go

It’s in Syndication on the left

It’s also available on the dashboard

Let’s add a new feed

Click Syndication

Syndicated Sites is the default Settings page

You paste RSS urls in the box on the top right

FeedWordPress shows a preview of your feed’s contents

Click Use this feed to confirm it

RSS Feed is now added to the site

Click Configure settings to customize how it is used by Wordpress

You are now in the Feeds & Updates section

You can make default settings for everything you add or individually

There are several types of settings

Feed, Posts, Authors, Categories

IMPORTANT

REMEMBER TO SAVE BEFORE SWITCHING SECTIONS

Save Changes is at the top right & bottom left of each settings page.

Feed section controls overall feed settings

Feed Information lets you customize for feed updates sync

with Site Settings.

Feed section controls overall feed settings

Update Scheduling lets you customize how often feed is polled.

IMPORTANT

Remember to change the Updates setting, it defaults to manual.

IMPORTANT

You should not poll feeds at a rate greater than 60 minutes without

permission from the author

Feed section controls overall feed settings

Updated Posts lets you customize what happens if the feed item

content changes

Feed section controls overall feed settings

Advanced Settings lets you customize timeouts and how

removed feed items are handled

SAVE YOUR CHANGES

Posts section controls how feed items are posted

Syndicated Posts lets you customize what happens with each

new posts or update

Posts section controls how feed items are posted

Links lets you customize whether each posts links back to the source

URL

Posts section controls how feed items are posted

Formatting lets you customize how relative URLs are used.

Posts section controls how feed items are posted

Comments & Pings lets you customize where comments

happen on your site or theirs.

Posts section controls how feed items are posted

Custom Post Settings and Custom Post Types are advanced settings

that we can skip over.

SAVE YOUR CHANGES

Authors section controls how post authors are handled

Syndicated Authors lets you manage whether feed authors are created on your

site or matched with existing authors

If you create a new author for each post, you may find your authors list in

WordPress is out of hand very fast.

IMPORTANT

SAVE YOUR CHANGES

Categories section controls item categories and tags

Feed Categories & Tags lets you manage whether new tags, categories and formats on your site sync up with syndicated sites.

Unless you control the categories and tags list in the site being syndicated, your own site’s tags and categories may get out of

hand very fast

IMPORTANT

Categories section controls item categories and tags

Categories lets you assign your own categories and tags regardless

of syndicated site’s.

SAVE YOUR CHANGES

Return to Syndicated Sites page

Update your feed manually

Syndicated posts will be added to your blog using the settings we just

made.