Sunday, December 5, 2010

When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?

This guest post is by HubSpot’s social media scientist, Dan Zarrella.

Of all the data analysis that I’ve done, day-of-week and time-of-day data has been consistently the most popular. So in preparation for my upcoming webinar, titled Science of Blogging, I decided to combine all of my existing data on timing with my new research into one master post on the subject.

The first time I looked at blog post timing was when I was analyzing retweets. I found that retweets exhibit a strong diurnal pattern, in that they’re more common during the day and less so at night. I noticed that retweet activity tended to peak around 4pm EST, suggesting that this might be the best time to tweet a blog post for maximum potential retweet reach.

When I looked at retweet activity over the days of the week, I saw that they peaked later in the work week, specifically on Friday.

Since I first published this graph, the most frequently cited piece of this research has been the idea that Friday at 4pm is the most retweetable time of the week. While your niche maybe different, this data was based on analysis of nearly 100 million retweets, so in aggregate, Friday at 4pm is indeed the most retweetable time of the week.

Moving on from retweets, I started studying Facebook sharing and discovered some things that surprised me about timing there, too.

First, while major news sites and blogs publish articles during the work week, articles that are published on Saturday and Sunday tend to be shared on Facebook more than those published during the week. Perhaps one reason for this is that (as Wired reported), more than 50% of American companies block Facebook at work.

Next, I looked at the effect that the time articles were published had on the number of times they were shared on Facebook. I found that while there is a fair amount of variation, articles published in the morning, around 9a.m. EST, tended to be shared more on Facebook than articles published at other times of the day.

Looking back at these four data points, it may seem that they’re contradictory, but thinking through them a bit more, we can see that they is not necessarily so. Both day-of-week charts tell us that we should experiment with publishing articles later in the week—on Friday and Saturday specifically.

And by publishing posts early in the day, but tweeting them later in the afternoon, we can stimulate both Facebook shares and retweets.

I recently did a survey of over 1,400 blog readers and I asked them what time-of-day they read blogs. Morning was the most popular, followed in decreasing popularity by the rest of the day. Most respondents reported reading blogs at more than one time, so this piece of data reinforces my suggestion to publish early in the morning.

The best timing advice, however, may actually be around frequency. Last week, I analyzed 1000 of the most popular blogs on the web, according to Technorati. I compared their posting frequency with the number of incoming links and visitors they had attracted (according to Yahoo and Compete).

I found that among very popular blogs, publishing multiple times per day led to a huge increase in a blog’s success. This tells us that rather than focusing one perfect day or time, we should aim to publish at many times, and on many days.

Have you experimented with post timing and tweeting? What has your experience shown about the best times of day or week to reach your readers?

Dan Zarrella is HubSpot’s social media scientist. This post contains data from his upcoming webinar The Science of Blogging, taking place on December 9th.

Friday, December 3, 2010

The Rockstar Guide to Getting More Traffic, Fame, and Success

image of young woman in sunglasses

Have you ever been to a concert where the opening act was just awful?

Maybe their music was okay, but there was something about the performance that undermined your ability to enjoy it. The group just lacked that special something that would make them stand out, that would draw you in.

That quality they’re lacking is called showmanship — and it’s not just for musicians.

You can spot a blogger who lacks showmanship a mile away.

Even after they’ve built a small and loyal following of readers, they still never seem to reach the level of success that the “A-List” bloggers in their niche have achieved. They sometimes spend years trying to overcome that plateau. They can’t figure out why they never get past being the “opening act” for the real rockstars in their niche.

They get frustrated and discouraged. Many of them give up. They hang up their metaphorical guitars and get regular 9-to-5 jobs and tell stories about how rough the industry is.

Don’t become one of those. I’m going to show you how to get the showmanship and stage presence you need to become the main act in anyone’s feed reader.

What is showmanship, and how does it apply to blogging?

Showmanship, according to the infallible Wikipedia, is “the skill of performing in such a manner that will appeal to an audience or aid in conveying the performance’s essential theme or message.”

That should sound familiar. Conveying a theme or message to an audience is exactly what we’re doing with blogging and content marketing. Yet so many people struggle to develop a style that will set them apart from everyone else in their niche.

But even the most mundane niches can be made new and interesting if you’re willing to find something special you can bring to the table.

For example, one of my favorite performers is pianist Victor Borge, who could easily have achieved a fine career as a traditional classical pianist in front of a hushed concert audience.

Instead, he found a way to make the music interesting and entertaining by adding comedy to his performance.

His shows elicit roars of laughter from his audience — and when was the last time you saw the formally-dressed concert hall crowd rolling in the aisles? It was completely unconventional, but his audiences loved him for it.

And his mastery of the piano was undiminished.

What showmanship isn’t

Showmanship isn’t a gimmick. It isn’t tricking the audience.

If Borge had been a less-than-stellar pianist, he wouldn’t have been able to transcend the concert hall standards to create his own way of approaching the music. Putting on a show isn’t putting on a mask.

Find something that works for you and pursue it. No trickery or attempting to be someone else required.

Good showmanship, the kind that engages your audience, needs to have authenticity at its core in order to work. If you become a sleazy Internet marketer, resort to spamming, or engage in bait-and-switch schemes, your audience won’t care if you have the best show on earth.

No amount of showmanship can hide a scumbag. Instead, take your authentic self and add some style to create a “wow” factor that grabs the attention of your audience and won’t let go.

Showmanship and stage presence

Your showmanship is what you bring that’s unique.

But “unique” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.” You could be the only blogger out there dressing in bacon and playing a ukulele, but that doesn’t mean you have valuable information to impart.

If you’re going to help your audience feel confident about your authority, you’re going to need something more than showmanship.

You need stage presence.

Stage presence is your ability to connect with an audience.

At this year’s BlogWorld, Brian Clark gave an excellent example of how to use stage presence.

Especially when it comes to marketing, people are like ‘Oh, well I’m supposed to do this, or I’m supposed to do that.’ No you’re not, because then you’re going to do exactly what everyone else does and you’re not unique.

So don’t feel like you need to be Naomi Dunford. I’m probably more like her in real life, but I choose to keep that on the down-low.

(…) I try to help people out. I try to help them learn something and make a business related to that.

And it’s as [much] the “real” me as any other part of me, but we all play different roles.

So that’s just my two cents on authenticity. Be who you want to be to your people. Be the best “you” you can be for them — not for you, for them.

That’s stage presence. Knowing what part of your authentic self connects with your audience — and then choosing to emphasize that aspect — is the first step to becoming the main act instead of just the ho-hum opener.

7 ways to use showmanship to command the attention of your audience

Choose a style that belongs to you. In order to be unique in your niche, you need to create a style that conveys who you are and what you do, in a way that your audience can get excited about. Find that “sweet spot” that will set you apart.
Immerse yourself in the style you’ve chosen. Once you’ve decided on your style, immerse everything you do in that style. That’s what showmanship is all about — taking what you do and wrapping it in a unique angle that gets your audience’s attention. If you don’t infuse everything you do with a single style, your audience will be confused by the conflicting brands you’re presenting.
Know what part of your personality connects with your audience. Being authentic doesn’t mean baring everything about yourself to the world. As Brian says, it’s about being the best “you” that you can be for your audience. Figure out what part of your personality “clicks” with your audience, and show more of that.
Focus on your audience, not yourself. I love what Sonia said at BlogWorld right after Brian finished his definition of authenticity. She said: “It’s not about you. It’s never about you. In business, it’s always about your customer.” If you want an engaged audience, you need to focus on what they want, what they need, and what they like.
Know the difference between authenticity and “too much information.” There’s a fine line between being authentic and telling your audience something they really didn’t want to know. Don’t cross the line into TMI. As Sonia says, “No one wants that much authenticity.”
Act like an authority if you want to be seen as one. If you want to be seen as an authority in your niche, you need to present yourself in a way that’s consistent with that level of respect. If you’re a financial advisor and you constantly complain about being broke, no one’s going to be very interested in your advice. Be mindful of how you present yourself.
Be consistent. At its core, branding is all about consistency — giving your audience the same positive experience every time they interact with you. If you want to command the attention of your audience, you need to be consistent in everything you do. Make sure everything you publish is in line with your overall brand, and stick to a consistent publishing schedule.

Being interesting isn’t enough

Being interesting isn’t enough if you want to establish yourself as an authority. Being talented isn’t enough, either.

Let’s face it, talented bands that are one-hit wonders are interesting for a time — then they fade into obscurity. No one wants that for their blog.

If you want to build a sustainable business model, you need to create a unique style that commands the attention of your audience, builds a solid connection with that audience, and establishes you as an expert.

Develop your showmanship and stage presence and you’ll be headliner for years to come. Even after you’ve turned old and gray, you’ll still be a rockstar.

Setting the Hook: Fishing for New Readers with Social Media Lures

This guest post is by Ben Harack of the Vision of Earth project.

Regarding readers as fish, and bloggers as fisherman, might seem strange. Bear with me as I show you part of why I like the idea of blogging as being similar to fishing.

Those of you who are familiar with fishing know that getting the fish to bite the lure is only the first step of the process. A good yank from your end is often advisable in order to “set the hook”, ensuring that the fish will be less likely to escape.

A new reader to your page doesn’t have the hook set yet, in fact, they might not have bit at all. They might just be moving closer, perhaps to sniff the lure.

Modern media speed and information overload has caused readers to be more cautious with the way they spend their time reading or browsing. The fish might just swim in a bit closer to see if the lure looks tasty. If the lure looks dead or unappetizing the fish will likely swim on to find something more interesting.

Lure readers in

One of the major topics on ProBlogger lately has been social media. While search engines have been very important in the development of the Internet, social media has led a revolution in how we interact with content.

I feel that the onslaught of social media has exacerbated the short attention spans of Internet readers. Social media information tends to come in small bites. I feel that this evidenced by the naturally short nature of Facebook statuses, tweets, and news headlines on Digg, Reddit, and others.

How is it best to lure people in with social media? This website is absolutely full of tips on this subject. To capture the power of social media, I can honestly recommend reading about:

Social media in general: The 5 Foundations of Social Media Success that No One Talks About
Digg: 4 Ways I Compose Posts to Drive Millions of Pageviews to Blogs Through Digg
Facebook:5 Ways I’m Using Facebook to Drive Traffic, Build Brand and Increase Reader Engagement
LinkedIn: Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using LinkedIn
Twitter: Top Ten Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog Using Twitter

In a recent post about the small size of tweets, Darren raised the idea of a possible swing towards long-form content. From his post, and my own experience in the area, I have concluded that social media tends to facilitate the creation of connectivity, conversation, and community around content of value.

For bloggers, the hub of our content tends to be our blogs and websites. Social media can be regarded to some extent as the cloud of human interaction around a website. Darren illustrates this well in his post Home Bases and Outposts – How I use Social Media in My Blogging.

It is important to note that social media is not just another outlet for your standard content. If you only use it to link directly back to your blog, you are missing out on most of its potential. Social media is primarily a conversation created around you and by you. Without your interaction, conversations will still happen, but they will progress without you being involved. A megaphone isn’t a good conversation partner. To create a strong following, you need to connect with the people who are interested in what you do.

In the world of social media, quality of communication is key. Being restricted to about 30 words per unit of communication means you have to make each one count. With practice and care, it is possible to show that brevity does not preclude quality. It is possible to convey great meaning with even a single tweet.

We live in the age of the sound bite, the slogan, and the catch-phrase. In order to tame the beast of social media, we need to master its language.

Set the hook

You can’t force people to read what is on your page, but you can certainly encourage them. You can’t force them to come back, but you can provide some good reasons why they might choose to.

The specific techniques that I try to use are:

Blog titles: 15 Ways to Rework Your Next Blog Title
Opening lines: 11 Ways to Open a Post and Get Reader Engagement
Scannable text: Writing Blog Content – Make it Scannable
Lists: 8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog

These tools cater to the tendencies of Internet readers. The intent is to grab their attention so that they will actually consume your content more fully rather than scanning it.

It is hard to set a dull hook. Sharpen your hook by making your website easier to navigate. Highlight your social media connections, and provide clearly visible ways for people to subscribe to your content or newsletter. Provide interactive elements such as contests and polls to generate additional interest.

I experimented recently with the creation of my own blog carnival called the Renewable Energy Review. Unfortunately as I found out, there is extremely little in the way of quality writing being pushed around the blogosphere on this topic. Our standards at Vision of Earth are high enough that only one article submitted thus far merited a link from us. This might sound harsh, but we have established standards of editing and fact-checking that are not matched outside of professional periodicals.

So what did I do? My team and I simply transitioned into creating a high-quality periodical of our own. Even with the publication so early in its life, we have noticed that it has already begun to draw some substantial interest. As a fledgling volunteer project/blog, we have been happy with the results.

More commonly, bloggers will write a series of posts on a topic to generate interest and subscribers. When people like what you write, and know that you will have more of it soon, they have an incentive to come back. All of the techniques for setting the hook eventually depend on you having content that is of value to readers to such an extent that they will come back again to experience more of it.

Eat your readers

Analogy taken too far? I think not!

Your readers consume your content, but you are the one who is attempting to make a living off them. If you are a Professional Blogger, the number and quality of your relationships with your readers are what literally put the food on your table.

Try to understand your readers and cultivate respect for them. Understand, because you may be fishing with the wrong lures or in the wrong part of the lake. Respect, because a genuine conversation requires some degree of shared positive regard.

Ben Harack is the leader of the Vision of Earth project, which attempts to study the key challenges facing society today. They publish on topics as wide-ranging as nuclear energy, ending poverty, and deliberate social change.

How Many Hours Do You Spend Working On Your Blog?

questions and answers This post is part of the Friday Q&A section. If you want to ask a question just send it via the contact form.

Bill Yann asks:

How many hours do you spend working on your blog every day? I am a new blogger, and I am having trouble to set a schedule for my blog.

There were basically three periods in my blogging journey, and during each I would work a different amount of time on the blogs.

When I first started blogging it was just a hobby, and I remember I used to work around one hour per day on it, usually at night, before going to sleep. This period lasted around one year.

After that I started monetizing the blogs, and eventually I quit my job to work full time on the Internet. The three blogs I was running at the time represented the bulk of my revenues, so I spent all day working on them (around 8 hours per day). Activities included search engine optimization, web design, research, content writing, promotion and networking. This period last around three years.

Then around one year ago I started diversifying my projects, and launched new websites. Some of these make money with affiliate marketing, others selling products directly to the end user. As a result I sold a couple of blogs, and kept only this one and Daily Writing Tips (where I have staff writers so I don’t need to put too much work).

So right now I spend around 2 hours per day on both blogs. Half of that time is spent moderating comments, answering to emails and running other maintenance related tasks, and the other half is spent writing content here.

I have some tips regarding how you can create an efficient schedule for your blog, but I’ll save that for a separate post.

Building Your Business Through Logo Branding

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Logo Mojo. All opinions are 100% mine.

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few years while running this blog, it’s the power of a good logo. The Zac Johnson toon has taken on a life of it’s own and has become a very recognized symbol in the affiliate marketing and blogging niche. Without the extra branding from this logo and having it seen all over the place, it would be tough to achieve the same success the blog has seen over the past few years.

Not currently using a logo or design to brand your blog or business? You should be. Imprint an imagine in the minds of your followers, readers and customers. Doing so will not only allow them to remember a symbol and not just a name, but it helps extraordinarily for your branding purposes. Pepsi, Apple and Nike are all recognized by their logos… not their names. Twitter has been an amazing tool for branding purposes. If you are using Twitter and just have a basic background, you are missing out free branding and advertising every day. Most of the big name bloggers and branded companies have their own Twitter backgrounds which usually include their logo, web site name and personal or company info.

As easy as it sounds to brand yourself, it’s actually one of the hardest tasks to accomplish. First you have to think about what type of message and visual appearance your logo is going to display. Since the majority of us are not designers, you will also have to find someone to design your logo and make it look professional. I’m going through this process all the time, as I like to launch new web sites with only the highest designs and with their own unique logos. Logo Mojo

is a design company that actually covers the majority of what I talked about above. I’m always looking for new quality designers to work on projects. After looking through their site and portfolio, they have a nice selection of logos that they’ve designed, and compared to other design services, they prices are quite reasonable. The design process is laid out really well on the web site, as it walks you through the process on how to best describe your logo concept and how you would like it to be perceived.

Whether you are looking to have a new logo identity created for your web site, blog or Twitter, it’s a great idea to visit Logo Mojo. Not only can you get inspired by their designs and tips, but walking through their design questionnaire will also help you determine the look and feel you are trying to get with your new logo.

What Can BloggingTips.com Do For You?

With the year coming to a close, and a 2011 just around the corner, it's time to get ready for some exciting improvements coming to BloggingTips.com. When I first acquired BloggingTips.com earlier this year, I knew the potential growth and tight niche community that was already established with the site. I look forward to continuing in these same area, while bringing improvements where the site has been lacking.

Here are just a few of the improvements that will be coming to BloggingTips.com soon:

New Blog Design
I'm all about keeping blog designs fresh and standing out from the crowd. A new blog design is in the works, which will consist of a new logo, better social networking placement and easier access to the best areas of the site. What else would you like to see in the new blog design?

New Writers and Interviews
We have a great staff of writers here at BloggingTips.com, and I'd like to bring in a few more high end writers to keep providing you with only the best content. There will also be a weekly interview series added to the writing schedule, which will feature bloggers of all sizes, which should help inspire and motivation you even more.

Job Board
A few other ideas I have for the blog are to build a better community around the site and help my readers. A Job Board may soon be added to the site, which can help you find new outsource solutions, or to even make some extra money as a freelance blogger/writer. This concept is still in the works, and depending on feedback, it will determine when and if this addition is placed on the site.

Mini Guides and Learning Tools
BloggingTips.com is all about helping bloggers "Taking Your Blog to the Next Level!"... look forward to seeing new mini ebooks and mini guides on how to improve your blogging experience.

With all of that said, I would greatly appreciate any comments (positive or negative), recommendations and what you would like to see from BloggingTips.com in the coming months.

Thank you to everyone for making BloggingTips.com what it is today!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Everything You Need to Import and Display RSS Feeds with WordPress

WordPress makes it super-easy to publish your own content, and even easier to import and display content from other great sites around the Web. Just as other people are displaying and reading your feed in their apps and devices, you can use external RSS feeds to supplement and strengthen your site’s primary content.

Whether you’re displaying feeds from similar sites or aggregating news from around the world, importing feeds means taking advantage of the best that the Web has to offer. In this post, you’ll see how easy it is to grab external RSS feeds and display them anywhere on your WordPress-powered site

Why do it?

No website is an island, and with a virtually infinite assortment of content and services around the Web, there’s no reason not to take advantage of content that will benefit your readers and help improve the overall quality and content of your site. Feeding external RSS content to WordPress:

adds relevant, useful content for your readers to enjoy
adds relevant, targeted keywords for search-engine robots
keep visitors on your site by giving them the content they want.

Depending on your niche, using external content opens up many possibilities. Here are some concrete examples to help illustrate some common ways RSS feeds are used to create and supplement content:

news sites importing weather feeds to display current conditions
sports sites importing news feeds reporting the latest sports news
investment sites displaying current market values and stock prices.

For blogs, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. I’ve seen some great independent sites that make excellent use of external feeds. Here are some examples:

blogs that display their social media feeds, such as Twitter and Facebook
bloggers with more than one website displaying posts from their other sites
news-portal sites that aggregate the best blogging and/or web design feeds.

And the best part? WordPress makes it so easy to integrate external RSS feeds that it’s almost funny. Depending on your goals and experience with WordPress, there are several ways to go about doing it: using widgets, plugins, or manual coding. Let’s examine these different techniques and explore everything you need to import and display RSS feeds with WordPress.

Displaying feeds with the default RSS widget

Right out of the box, WordPress includes a handy RSS widget that can be used in any widgetized area on any widgetized theme. Just drag the widget to your widget area and choose your options:

The default RSS widget

As seen in the screenshot above, the default RSS widget provides several basic options, including number of feed items and which elements to display. Yes, it’s super-easy, but your customization choices are limited. As a general rule, the more stuff (e.g. post title, post date, author name, and so on) you include with each feed item, the more cluttered it tends to look.

Seriously, a linked title and post excerpt is all you really need to display, and doing so keeps things looking clean. Unfortunately, even after limiting our display options to only “title and excerpt”, the output using the default WordPress theme looks sloppy:

The default widget output

…and the posts just continue all the way down the sidebar. If you’re handy with CSS, adding a few rules to your style.php may be all that’s needed to slap things into shape, but clearly more control is desired for better customization.

Displaying feeds with WordPress plugins

For more control when you’re working with external feeds, there a number of excellent plugins available. Let’s have a look at the best plugins for importing and displaying external RSS feeds. Note: all plugins have been tested/reviewed with current versions at the time of this posting, and working with the latest version of WordPress, 3.0.2.

FeedWordPress: import feed content as posts.
WP-o-Matic: import feed content as posts.
RSSImport: display feed content anywhere.

FeedWordPress

A good sign of a reputable WordPress plugin is how many times it has been downloaded. So with over 300,000 downloads, FeedWordPress by Charles Johnson is definitely worth checking out. It’s an incredibly powerful, flexible plugin that makes importing and customizing feed content extremely easy. Here’s a screenshot of the Settings page:

The FeedWordPress Settings page

But FeedWordPress does way more than just display external feed content on your site—it actually creates a post for each imported feed item. So, for example, if I want to back up my latest Twitter tweets, I can either create an entire tweet archive, or I can let FeedWordPress do it for me. FeedWordPress installs easily, and imports any number of feeds using the following default settings:

Auto-updates are turned off by default; cron may be configured, or just use manual fetching.
Auto-import and create categories, tags, and even authors (as contributors) for each feed item.
Titles for feed items are auto-linked to the source, so there are no single-page views or comments.

Of course, all of these options may be configured to your liking using the FeedWordPress Settings page. Other useful settings enable you to mark imported posts as drafts or private, update posts to match changed feed content, and much more. To get started, check out the FeedWordPress Quick-start Guide.

WP-o-Matic

Another incredible plugin for importing feed content as posts, WP-o-Matic is very similar to FeedWordPress, but with some different features and slightly easier configuration. After installing the plugin, hit the Settings page for an easy, four-step configuration process:

Run compatibility check.
Configure time-zone settings.
Configure cron settings (via WebCron, crontab, unix cron, or manual fetching).
You’re done!

After configuration, you can begin importing feeds by creating a new Campaign and setting the following options:

feed title, slug, URL, and category
any regex pattern-matching on key terms (optional)
configuration of optional Custom import/post template and polling frequency
setting discussion preferences and whether to send pingbacks
setting whether title links should point to single-view page or content source.

In addition to importing and customizing any number of feeds, WP-o-Matic also enables image caching and provides some great import/export tools. Also worth mentioning is that WP-o-Matic doesn’t import any categories, tags, or users by default. Here’s a screenshot of the Settings page:

The WP-o-Matic Settings page

For importing feeds as post content, WP-o-Matic and FeedWordPress are excellent plugins that make things easy while providing much control over the configuration and customization of the entire process.

RSSImport

If you want to display external feeds without creating posts, the RSSImport plugin is really all you need. RSSImport enables you to import and display feeds using a shortcode, widget, or PHP template tags. And it does this using WordPress’s built-in feed-parsing functionality, via MagpieRSS (for WP 2.8+) or SimplePie (for older WP).

RSSImport makes it seriously easy to display any feed anywhere in your theme—and with massive flexibility. Here are three ways to do it with RSSImport:

Display feed content using the RSSImport widget

To display external feeds in the sidebar (or any other widgetized area), just install the plugin and visit the Widgets page. There you will find options for everything under the sun, giving you full control over many configuration options. Here is a screenshot showing a few of the widget’s many settings:

The RSSImport Settings page

Setting things up with the widget is really just a matter of going through the options and making sure everything is exactly how you want it. Bada-boom, bada-bing, as they say.

Display feed content using a shortcode

RSSImport also makes it easy to display feed content right in your posts and pages using a shortcode. Here is the simplest example, showing the five most-recent feed items from Digging into WordPress:

[RSSImport display="5" feedurl="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/DiggingIntoWordpress"]

That works perfectly, but there are many parameters available for customization. I’ve included a more involved example, using as many parameters as possible, in the downloadable code for this post.

So with the widget, RSSImport lets us display feed content in any widgetized area. And now with the shortcode, we can display feeds right in your posts and pages. But if we still desire even more control, we can get our hands dirty and modify our theme template files directly.

Display feed content anywhere in your theme

Direct modification of theme (or child theme) template files isn’t for everyone, but for complete control over configuration and customization, you may need to go there. I’s really no big deal, though—just pick a spot in your theme and add the following line of PHP code:

Just like with the widget and shortcode methods, you can use any of the RSSImport parameters to customize feed display any way you wish. Check out RSSImport at the Plugin Directory for complete details.

Displaying Feeds with WordPress’s built-in functionality

WordPress has a built-in way of displaying feeds using the fetch_feed function. Using the fetch_feed function means we have one less plugin to fiddle with and maintain, so if you feel comfortable working with basic PHP and WordPress template tags, then you’ll love how easy it is to import and display external feeds. To illustrate, paste this snippet anywhere in your theme (e.g. sidebar.php):

$rss = fetch_feed('http://feeds2.feedburner.com/DiggingIntoWordpress');
$rss_items = $rss->get_items(0, 3);
foreach($rss_items as $item) echo '
'.$item->get_title().'

';

…and we’re done. Just specify your feed URL in the first line, and you’re up and running.

Way back when, importing feeds was

Blogging World

Blogger Insight - blogging world

Sunday, December 5, 2010

When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?

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Friday, December 3, 2010

The Rockstar Guide to Getting More Traffic, Fame, and Success