Reader Liz Lockard asked:
I have a web-by question! I’ve seen this elsewhere but have no idea where to even start to produce my own. For some blogs that I subscribe to via Google Reader, at the bottom they have text that *only* shows up in the reader – usually something about signing up for their mailing list. How do I do that? My site is in WordPress.
The answer is RSS Feed Footers.
An RSS Feed is the stream of your website’s content that can be used for many purposes such as blog broadcasts through your newsletter, e-mail subscriptions, and browsing through Google Reader like Liz does. If you are using WordPress, you can usually see your feed by going to yoursite.com/feed/. (For example, you can see this site’s feed by going to https://www.thatsupergirl.com/feed/.)
An RSS Feed Footer is a snippet of information that is placed at the bottom of each post. In my feed, you can see a line that says "The post ____ appeared first on ____ .", like this:
The RSS Feed Footer can create an important link back to your site for those who are reading your content away from your website. It can also give you credit for the post, give you a place to promote products, or give you a means to place advertising in your feed.
Here’s how you get one:
- Install Yoast SEO. I see that Liz is using the All in One SEO plugin. While that is a popular plugin and it works well, there is another plugin with the same capabilities (and more!) that has an even better rating at WordPress.org: The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin. Download that and install it. (You can also install it within WordPress by clicking on Plugins > Add New in the wp-admin, searching for the plugin, and then clicking install.)
- Configure the RSS Footer. Once the plugin is installed, go to SEO > RSS in the wp-admin. There you can set the text that will appear both before and after each item in your feed. Remember to click "Save Settings" once you are done!
Do you have a burning tech question that you need answered? See this post for details on how you can get it answered for free this October.