Tutorials

How to Create a Custom RSS Feed Summary with Featured Image in WordPress

How to Create a Custom RSS Feed Summary with Featured Image in WordPress

In my search for the perfect solution to common RSS feed challenges, it was the beauty of Mad Mimi’s RSS emails formatted for “clean display” that finally gave me the inspiration. I’d spent hours trying to customize my MailChimp RSS campaigns to include a featured image along with the excerpt, but to no avail. (Then there is the constant frustration of extra-wide post images making the MailChimp email body drastically wider than the email header.) And even if I could get my emails to look how I wanted them to (just like Mad Mimi’s!), that still left the question of my RSS feed. That’s when I realized the solution was to start at the source and customize my WordPress RSS feed.

But customizing my WordPress RSS feed was a lot harder than it sounded. Until WordPress developer Robin Cornett took her plugin Send Images to RSS and made version 3.0 rich with all the features I’d hoped for an in RSS plugin–and more!

Here’s how to know Send Images to RSS is for you, and the details on how I set it up to create a beautiful custom RSS feed summary.

WordPress RSS Feeds: Summary vs. Full Text or Custom?

WordPress RSS Feeds: Summary vs. Full Text or Custom?

I’ve been in a quandary about partial feeds versus full feeds ever since I knew what an RSS feed was. As a reader, I liked the ability to consume an entire post from within my feed reader or email inbox, especially when I didn’t have an internet connection at home. But as a blogger, I wanted to get readers to my site, where they could comment on posts, and of course, click on affiliate links and generate ad impressions.

But wait, what is the difference, you ask? WordPress offers two default options for displaying your RSS feed: summary or full text.

The truth is, I don’t like either option. But there’s an alternative.

Want to encourage commenting on your blog posts? Check out these 10 super practical ways to streamline your comment section so it's easy to comment.

10 Practical Ways to Encourage Comments and Conversation on Your WordPress Blog

It’s all fine and good to declare blog commenting alive and well. But how can we give the comment section on our own blog a shot in the arm? We’ve heard the usual suggestions time and time again: write good content, ask questions, be real, be controversial, be sure to reply to their comments, as well…

Wondering what to use for a related posts plugin now that #nRelate is gone? Here are reviews of the top alternatives!

Top Ten Must-Have Features of a Related Posts WordPress Plugin

 by Gretchen Louise with Kelly Kathleen Many WordPress bloggers ran their plugin updates in early December to see a notice announcing the discontinuation of their favorite suite of related posts plugins: nRelate Related Content, nRelate Most Popular, and nRelate Flyout. We had until 5pm EST on December 31, 2014 before the nRelate plugins and service stopped…

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