Tutorials

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.

by Gretchen Louise · 5 Comments

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.

by Gretchen Louise · 11 Comments

The Truth About Mompreneurs

There’s a myth about mompreneurs (mom entrepreneurs). We hear it in various forms, but it’s usually the well-meaning comment of a friend or a client: “I’m amazed by how you do all you do.” “I don’t know how you do it all.” Sometimes we try to explain the truth. Other times we just laugh it off. It is laughable, really….
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by Gretchen Louise · 13 Comments

Top 10 Places On Your Blog to Convert Visitors to Subscribers

Converting readers to subscribers isn’t always easy. If content is king, then having a fabulous freebie to offer your email subscribers is surely the queen. But what you really need is a court jester or two dancing around on your blog, inviting your visitors to subscribe. Preferably, you’d name them Jester A and Jester B and do some A/B split testing…
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by Gretchen Louise · 24 Comments

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 as comment around the web. But no…
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by Gretchen Louise · 55 Comments

5 Reasons to Keep Comments on Your Blog

There’s a tidal wave sweeping the blogosphere: bloggers everywhere are removing the comment feature from their blogs. They say that replying to the comments is no longer scale-able, it takes too much time to moderate spam, and the conversation is taking place elsewhere. Whatever the reasons stated, the fact is: comments are down, and many bloggers are willing to help them die….
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by Gretchen Louise · 35 Comments

nRelate Related Posts Plugin Alternatives for WordPress

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 working, according to the nRelate…
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by Gretchen Louise · 174 Comments

How to Give a Free Download to Your MailChimp Email Subscribers

The most popular email list building advice is to entice potential subscribers with a free download. But once you’ve figured out what your freebie is going to be and have your PDF all ready, you’re stuck trying to figure out where to upload and link your file so that your subscribers will get it automatically (and no one else will be…
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by Gretchen Louise · 21 Comments

Understanding ShareASale Affiliate Links

When you first get started in affiliate marketing, you’re hit by a barrage of information that makes little or no sense, especially if you aren’t the blogger type. What are cookies? How do affiliate links work? Which link do I use? How can I include an image? What’s a disclosure? Well, I’ll start with a disclosure. This post on using…
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by Gretchen Louise · 5 Comments

How to Make Gmail Work for You

Gmail is the email app and address of choice for many. Whether you use a free @gmail.com email address, or pay to use Google Apps with your @yourdomain.com address, Gmail provides powerful features that are unrivaled among other email providers. But most Gmail users only scratch the surface of the options available to them within the Gmail settings and labs. Here are…
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by Gretchen Louise · 4 Comments

How to Manage Your Email for Inbox Zero

The concept of an empty inbox has become almost laughable these days. With smart phones and devices of every variety, we have access to our email everywhere, all the time. Social media provides a whole new set of inboxes, not to mention notifications that arrive via email. There’s also the fact that most of us these days have more than…
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