Presented at Podcamp Toronto 2017

1. Set it and forget it: Automated
WordPress sites for busy (or lazy)
people.
OR How to syndicate RSS feeds inside
of WordPress

2. Introduction
• I’m Brent Morris or Brent the Closet Geek in
the podosphere. I’m been a podcaster since
late-2005
• I’ve done a bunch of podcasts on and off
• The prime reason I’ve ever stopped is laziness
about posting new content
• I wanted to automate publishing new content
on my personal site closetgeekshow.ca

3. Introduction
• Currently doing 4 shows semi-regularly
– The Closet Geek Show
• closetgeekshow.ca
– The Anger Core
• theangercore.com
– The Showhole
• theshowhole.com
– Gapage: Conversations with Ken and Brent
• gapages.blogspot.ca

4. Introduction
• I tried a bunch of different plugins and
techniques to do this idea
• Settled on using WordPress with the
FeedWordpress plugin.
• Today I’ll show you how to set it up and
configure it. Once configured, you barely need
to touch it.
• Every time an added feed updates, so does
your website.

5. Search for ‘FeedWordPress’ in
directory
If you are using the CLI the plugin
name is ‘feedwordpress’

6. Activate FeedWordPress
Click installed plugins on left

7. FeedWordPress is now ready to go
It’s in Syndication on the left

8. It’s also available on the dashboard

9. Let’s add a new feed
Click Syndication

10. Syndicated Sites is the default
Settings page
You paste RSS urls in the box on the
top right

11. FeedWordPress shows a preview of
your feed’s contents
Click Use this feed to confirm it

12. RSS Feed is now added to the site
Click Configure settings to customize
how it is used by Wordpress

13. You are now in the Feeds & Updates
section
You can make default settings for
everything you add or individually

14. There are several types of settings
Feed, Posts, Authors, Categories

15. IMPORTANT
REMEMBER TO SAVE BEFORE
SWITCHING SECTIONS
Save Changes is at the top right &
bottom left of each settings page.

16. Feed section controls overall feed
settings
Feed Information lets you customize
for feed updates sync with Site
Settings.

17. Feed section controls overall feed
settings
Update Scheduling lets you
customize how often feed is polled.

18. IMPORTANT
Remember to change the Updates
setting, it defaults to manual.

19. IMPORTANT
You should not poll feeds at a rate
greater than 60 minutes without
permission from the author

20. Feed section controls overall feed
settings
Updated Posts lets you customize
what happens if the feed item
content changes

21. Feed section controls overall feed
settings
Advanced Settings lets you
customize timeouts and how
removed feed items are handled

22. SAVE YOUR CHANGES

23. Posts section controls how feed items
are posted
Syndicated Posts lets you customize
what happens with each new posts
or update

24. Posts section controls how feed items
are posted
Links lets you customize whether
each posts links back to the source
URL

25. Posts section controls how feed items
are posted
Formatting lets you customize how
relative URLs are used.

26. Posts section controls how feed items
are posted
Comments & Pings lets you
customize where comments happen
on your site or theirs.

27. Posts section controls how feed items
are posted
Custom Post Settings and Custom
Post Types are advanced settings
that we can skip over.

28. SAVE YOUR CHANGES

29. Authors section controls how post
authors are handled
Syndicated Authors lets you manage
whether feed authors are created on
your site or matched with existing
authors

30. If you create a new author for each
post, you may find your authors list in
WordPress is out of hand very fast.
IMPORTANT

31. SAVE YOUR CHANGES

32. Categories section controls item
categories and tags
Feed Categories & Tags lets you
manage whether new tags, categories
and formats on your site sync up with
syndicated sites.

33. Unless you control the categories and
tags list in the site being syndicated,
your own site’s tags and categories
may get out of hand very fast
IMPORTANT

34. Categories section controls item
categories and tags
Categories lets you assign your own
categories and tags regardless of
syndicated site’s.

35. SAVE YOUR CHANGES

36. Return to Syndicated Sites page

37. Update your feed manually
Syndicated posts will be added to
your blog using the settings we just
made.