Official HSB Tech Blog

August 1, 2008

Blogging Revamped - RSS Widget

RSS feed is one of the most important (and one of the most ignored) features of a blog. It allows your readers to retrieve the latest content from your blog without actually having to join any newsletter or wait for your blog to load. RSS also ensures that your readers visit your blog because the RSS can be sent directly to their email. RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary" and the number of sites offering RSS is growing rapidly - for good reason.   Turning the RSS on for your HSB Blog is fairly easy. Follow these simple steps.   1) Sign into your blog. 2) Click the Settings button. 3) Click the Site Feed button. 4) Switch the Publish Site Feed drop down to yes and click save.   That's it! A link should show up in the "Site Feed" section with your feed URL. This link should also show up on your sidebar. Now that you have your RSS activated, you may want to make it a bit more noticeable. Many people don't take the time to scan text links on a blog so you should use a widget to get your RSS noticed and that is where the SpringWidgets RSS Reader comes in handy.   To add the widget to your blog grab your RSS code from the site feed location mentioned above and head over to http://www.springwidgets.com/widgets/view/23 at SpringsWidgets.com. You can find an example of what the widget looks like and a place to grab the code.   1) Click "Customize This Widget" on the left side of the page and enter a size for your widget (100x250 should be fine for most blogs). 2) Delete the feed URL titled http://feeds.feedburner.com/springwidgets. 3) Paste your RSS feed URL into the first feed URL field and click the "+" button to the right. 4) Change the border color and the header image if you wish and push the "Click Here To Get The Code" button. Over the top of the sample feed image a box with multiple buttons will appear. Click the HTML button and copy all the code that appears. 5) Login to your HSB blog and go to your template editing page. Find your sidebar code and paste the code you copied earlier in the location of your choice. Save your changes and the widget should appear on your blog.    Congrats! You have now installed the RSS Widget. All that your users have to do is click the yellow RSS button in the widget and they can sign up to get email updates of your blog. Additionally, readers can scan your posts and see if they have missed any of the latest content!   Tips The widget may not appear if you don't have Flash 9 or later. To download the latest version go to http://tiny.cc/flash998    To center the widget use this code: [center]widget code here[/center] (replace "]" with ">").   You can add as many feed codes as you like! Just paste the RSS feed URL in the first field and click the "+" button. If you have any questions about using the widget you can email me.   Eric Novak HSB Tech http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/blogboy

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Comments

August 1, 2008 - Thanks

Posted by deedeeuk

That was helpfull information. Can I just ask if there is a problem with RSS at HSB? A friend of mine and my Mom's blogs both are set to send RSS but they don't work! Not sure what to tell them to do, but both are rather techniphobic and I had to originally set up their blogs for them. Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong. It all works on mine though. - Deedee

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August 1, 2008 - RSS feeds require...

Posted by ShawnKHall

RSS feeds on HSB require that the entries be posted visible "to anyone". It will NOT include entries that are set to "me only", "my friends" or "HSB members only". Shawn Hall HSB TECH SUPPORT Edited by Administrator on August 3, 2008 at 11:38 PM

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