Tuesday, June 7, 2022

How to Make a Gym Website in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to make a gym website in WordPress?

Making a gym website on WordPress is the easiest way to promote your business online and get more customers.

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to easily make a gym website using WordPress.

Step by step guide on making a gym website

Here is a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover in this guide.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Step 1: Deciding on a Gym Website Platform

There are many different website platforms that you can use to create a gym website, but your success entirely depends on choosing the right one.

WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. It powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet including thousands of gyms, health and fitness-related businesses.

Now, there are two types of WordPress available.

First, there is WordPress.com which is a blog hosting service, and then you have the free WordPress.org software which is also called self-hosted WordPress.

We recommend the WordPress.org software because it gives you full freedom and flexibility to build and grow your gym website. For more details, see our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

To get started with WordPress, you’ll need a domain name and a website hosting account.

A domain name is what your users will type in their browser to find your website (e.g. wpbeginner.com), and a hosting account is where your website files will be stored.

Normally, a domain name costs $14.99 per year and web hosting starts from $7.99 per month (usually paid yearly).

Now, that’s a significant investment, particularly when you are just starting out.

Luckily, the folks at Bluehost have agreed to offer WPBeginner users a free domain name with a generous discount on hosting.

Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

Simply visit the Bluehost website and click on the green get started button.

The Bluehost web hosting plan

This will bring you to the pricing plans. The Basic and Plus plans are the most popular among our users.

Choose plan

Simply click select on a plan to move on to the next screen.

From here, you’ll be asked to choose a domain name for your website.

Enter domain name

If you need help, take a look at our tips on how to choose the best domain name.

Click on the Next button to continue.

From here, you need to provide your personal information such as address and phone number, and choose your plan duration.

Choose plan duration

Below that, you’ll see some package extras. We recommend unchecking all of them to save extra costs. You can always add them later if needed.

Uncheck package extras

Finally, enter your payment details to complete the purchase.

Bluehost will now send you an email to the address you provided during signup. This email will have login details to access your web hosting control panel.

Bluehost control panel

Once logged in, you’ll. notice that Bluehost has automatically installed WordPress for you. You can simply click on the Log into WordPress button to access your new WordPress website dashboard.

It will look something like this:

wordpress dashboard

Congratulations, you have successfully set up WordPress and are now ready to customize your gym website!

Step 2. Choosing a Design for Your Gym Website

The next step is to choose a design and layout for your gym website.

We’ll show you two ways to customize the design of your gym website. You can choose one that works best for you.

Method 1. Choose a WordPress Theme For Your Gym Website

WordPress themes control the design and layout of your website, and there are thousands of free and paid themes to choose from.

However, this abundance of choices make it a bit overwhelming for beginners to pick a theme for their gym website.

A good starting point would be our showcase of the best WordPress themes for gym websites.

WordPress themes for gym websites

You can also look at our pick of the most popular WordPress themes. All of them can be easily used for a gym website.

Now here are a few tips that will help you pick the best design for your website.

  • Go for a simple design. Simplicity makes your design more versatile and easy to adapt to your requirements.
  • Test the theme demo for website speed to make sure that it won’t slow down your website.
  • Look at the theme demo on mobile devices to make sure it looks equally good on smaller screens.

For more tips, see our tutorial on how to choose the perfect theme for your website.

After choosing a theme, you will need to customize your WordPress theme to make it fit your gym website.

For most themes, you can simply go to the Appearance » Customize page to start setting up your WordPress theme. The available customization options will be different depending on the theme.

Customize your WordPress theme

Method 2. Make Your Own Custom Theme for Your Gym Website (No Coding)

For this method, you’ll need the SeedProd plugin. It is the best WordPress page builder and theme builder plugin for WordPress and allows you easily create a completely custom gym website theme.

Over 1 million websites use SeedProd to build better looking websites. There is a free version of SeedProd, but to get full features you’ll need the Pro version.

SeedProd comes with a bunch of starter themes that you can use as starting point, or you can start with a blank canvas and create a theme from scratch.

SeedProd starter themes

It comes with an intuitive drag and drop builder.

You can drag blocks from the left column onto the page to add common web design elements to your layouts.

SeedProd theme builder

Every block is easy to customize by simply clicking on it.

You can change colors, background, height, width, and other properties of any element on your website.

Edit theme

For more details, see our tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme from scratch.

Step 3. Adding Features to Your Gym Website

The best thing about WordPress is the ability to install plugins.

Think of plugins as apps for your website. You can add them to your website to extend its functionality and add new features.

Depending on how you want to run your gym business online, there are plenty of plugins to help you get more new customers and even sell merchandise or memberships online.

Let’s check out some of the common features most gym websites use to run their business online.

Add a Gym Membership Form to Your Website

As a gym website, you may want users to be able to sign up and register for their gym membership online.

To do that, you’ll need WPForms which is the best WordPress form builder on the market.

It allows you to easily create any kind of form using a simple drag and drop tool. You can create a membership registration form and accept online payments using PayPal, Stripe, or Authorize.net.

Gym registration form

You can even turn on recurring payments to automatically charge members when their membership expires.

Enable recurring payments

Plus, WPForms connects to popular email marketing platforms which allows you to easily send email newsletters to your members.

There’s also a free version of WPForms available that you can use to create simple online forms. Over 5 million websites use WPForms.

Make a Gym Membership Website with MemberPress

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin. It allows you to easily sell online memberships with recurring payments.

It gives you more flexible membership options, like discounts, trial memberships, different subscription levels, and more.

MemberPress Website

You can add educational resources to your gym website as well.

For example, you can sell online courses for your fitness plans, allow fitness coaches to sell classes online, and offer members-only content like video lessons, workout sheets, and more.

Creating subscription plans for gym membership

MemberPress works with all top email marketing services, payment gateways, and other WordPress plugins that you may already be using.

For more details, see our tutorial on how to make a membership website with WordPress.

Install WooCommerce to Sell Gym Merchandise

Want to add an online store to your gym website?

WooCommerce is the world’s biggest eCommerce platform and it runs on top of WordPress.

With WooCommerce, you can easily sell merchandise like gym clothing, accessories, health & fitness equipment, and more.

Selling gym merchandise online

WooCommerce supports PayPal, Stripe, and dozens of other payment services. It also has features to help you with inventory management, shipping, taxes, and more.

For more detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to start an online store for beginners.

This brings us to the next step in our tutorial.

Step 4. Promoting Your Gym Website

Now that you have set up your gym website and everything is put in place, the next step is to start promoting your website.

Luckily, WordPress gives you access to all the best tools to easily grow your business by promoting your website.

Following are a few tools that will quickly put you on the right track to success.

  • All in One SEO for WordPress – For most websites, search engines are the major source of traffic. All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and helps you get more free traffic to your website from search engines. Here’s a link to the free version of AIOSEO.
  • OptinMonster – Once the users are on your website, you want them to become a gym member, sign up, or get in touch. This is where OptinMonster comes in. It helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers.
  • PushEngage – It is the best web push notification platform on the market. It allows you to show targeted push notifications to your users on mobile and desktop devices even when they are not currently visiting your website.
  • Smash Balloon – For many gym websites, social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook quickly help you build a large following. Smash Balloon’s social feeds help you built strong social media following using your WordPress website.
  • MonsterInsights – It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and allows you to see where your users are coming from and what they do on your website. This way, you can see what’s working and improve your conversions and sales. Here’s a link to the free version of MonsterInsights.

Need more plugin recommendations? See our full list of essential WordPress plugins for any business website.

Examples of Gym Websites Made With WordPress

As you work on your gym website, you may want to draw some inspiration from other gym websites.

You can check what strategies they are using to sell more memberships and grow their business. After that, you can try similar strategies for your own gym business.

1. Healthworks Fitness

Healthworks Fitness

Healthworks Fitness runs 20+ fitness centers for women. Their website uses a minimalist design with clear call-to-action buttons.

2. Tonal

Tonal

Tonal is a smart home gym company. Their website showcases a large video header showcasing their flagship product in action.

3. Anytime Fitness

Anytime Fitness runs gyms at several locations. Their website uses a clean layout with lots of bold colors, fonts, and calls to action.

We hope this guide helped you easily make a gym website in WordPress. You may also want to see our tips on getting more traffic to your new site or follow our complete WordPress SEO guide to improve your content.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Make a Gym Website in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.


June 07, 2022 at 05:00PM

Monday, June 6, 2022

How to Customize Your WordPress Header (Beginner’s Guide)

Do you want to show a custom header for your WordPress website?

Many WordPress themes come with a built-in header that sits at the top of each page. You may need to customize it to add important links, social icons, site search, or other elements to make a good first impression.

In this article, we’ll show you how to customize your WordPress header and even create a fully custom header for your entire site or specific pages.

How to Customize Your WordPress Header (Beginner's Guide)

What Is the Header in WordPress?

Your website header is the top section of every page on your WordPress website, and probably the first thing your visitors will see.

It often displays your website logo and title, navigation menus, and other important elements that you want users to see first.

For example, here’s our header area on WPBeginner that millions of readers see every month.

The WPBeginner Header

By customizing your site’s header, you can give it a unique design and make it more useful for your visitors. You can link to your most popular pages, display social icons or your business phone number, and show call to action buttons for more conversions.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to easily customize your WordPress header. You can use the following links to jump to the section you want to read.

Customize Header by Using the WordPress Theme Customizer

Many popular WordPress themes let you use the WordPress theme customizer to make changes to the header area of your WordPress layout. This feature is sometimes called a custom header, but not all themes support it.

You should start by navigating to Appearance » Customize in your WordPress admin area.

Note: If you don’t see Appearance » Customize in your WordPress admin menu, but only see Appearance » Editor (Beta), then that means your theme has enabled full-site editing. In that case, you should skip to the next section.

Your theme may add a ‘Header’ section to the customizer, or add header options under the ‘Color’ section, but this varies from theme to theme. Here are a few examples.

Some themes, like Twenty Twenty-One, do not offer header customization options at all. In this case, we recommend you use a drag & drop theme builder plugin like SeedProd that we cover below.

The Twenty Sixteen theme allows you to add a background image to the header, and even add random header images.

The Twenty Sixteen Theme Lets You Add Random Header Images

Some free and premium WordPress themes offer even more theme customization options. For example, you may be able to change your header’s font style, layout, colors, and much more. But you are limited to what the theme developer allows you to do.

For example, you can create a custom header using the theme customizer with the Astra theme.

Astra has a dedicated ‘Header Builder’ option in the panel on your left. Here you’ll find different settings to edit the appearance and style of the header. You can build a custom header by adding blocks, just like when editing a blog post or page in the WordPress content editor.

To start, simply hover over an empty area in the header and click the ‘+’ icon to add a header block.

Click plus icon

Next, you can select any block you’d like to add to your custom header. For example, you can add widget block, account block, search block, and more.

Plus, the header builder also lets you drag and drop the blocks and place them above or below the header.

Add header blocks in theme customizer

You can further customize each block that you add to the header.

For instance, selecting the Site Title & Logo block will give you options to upload a site title and logo, change the logo’s width, display a site tagline, and more.

Customize each header block

Besides that, you can also change the background color of the header or add a background image to appear in the header.

When you’re done editing the custom header, simply click the ‘Publish’ button.

For more details, see our ultimate guide on how to use the WordPress theme customizer.

Customize Header by Using the WordPress Full Site Editor

WordPress added full-site editing to WordPress in version 5.9. If your theme supports the new feature, then it replaces the theme customizer. However, at this time there are only a few themes that work with the full site editor.

When you use a compatible theme, you can customize your header by navigating to Appearance » Editor. This will launch the full site editor, which is just like the block editor you use to write WordPress posts and pages.

When you click the header, you will notice the name of the template at the top of the page changes to ‘Page Header’.

Change the Full Site Editor Template to 'Page Header'

Now when you click the ‘Settings’ icon on the toolbar, you will see options to customize the header’s layout, color, border, and dimensions.

As an example, we’ll change the header’s background color. First, you need to click on the ‘Color’ section to expand it. After that, you should click on the ‘Background’ option.

Changing the Header's Background Color

A popup will appear that allows you to select a solid color or gradient. There will also be a number of colors that you can select. When you click on a color, the background of your header will be changed immediately.

You can find more customization options by clicking the ‘Styles’ icon at the top right of the page. This will let you change the header’s font, colors, and layout.

You'll Find Additional Customization Options by Clicking the ‘Styles’ Icon

To learn more about how the full site editor works, see our beginner’s guide on how to customize your WordPress theme.

Create Custom Header and Page Layouts with SeedProd

If you want to have total control over your headers, footers, and sidebars to give your website a unique design, then we recommend using SeedProd.

SeedProd is the best WordPress theme builder plugin that allows you to easily create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code. This includes creating headers, footers, and everything else needed for an attractive WordPress theme.

You can even create multiple custom header styles for different pages and sections of your website.

SeedProd Offers an Easy to Use Theme Builder

Note: You can use the free version of SeedProd to create custom landing pages including custom headers, but you will need the Pro version to create fully custom themes which include sitewide header layouts.

First, we recommend following our guide on how to easily create a custom WordPress theme without any code. Once you’ve done this, SeedProd makes it simple to customize your header.

All you need to do is click the ‘Edit Design’ link found under the header.

The SeedProd Theme Builder Lets You Edit the Design of Your Header

This will open the header in SeedProd’s drag and drop editor.

From here, you can easily customize your header by adding new blocks.

SeedProd theme builder

There are blocks for template tags like a site logo, any of your WordPress widgets, and advanced blocks such as a countdown timer, navigation menu, or social sharing buttons.

The best part is that you can further customize each block using the theme builder. For instance, you can change the size and alignment of your logo or choose which pages to show in the navigational menu. It even allows you to add an image in the header.

With SeedProd, you can also add a complete section to your theme’s header template.

Sections are a group of blocks, and you can use them for different areas on your website. This includes headers, footers, features, testimonials, call to action, and more.

To use a header section, first switch to the ‘Sections’ tab in the Design panel.

Switch to the sections panel

After that, choose a header section you’d like to use for your website. SeedProd offers multiple section templates that you can use.

Next, go ahead and customize the header section.

Customize your header section

Once you’re happy with your custom header, make sure you click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Now, you’re ready to publish your custom header.

Simply go to SeedProd » Theme Builder page from your WordPress dashboard and click the toggle next to the ‘Enable SeedProd Theme’ option to Yes.

Enable SeedProd theme

Once you enable the option, SeedProd will replace your default WordPress theme with a new custom theme and header.

You can now visit your website to see the new custom header in action.

Custom header preview

Create Different Custom Headers for Each Page

Did you know that using SeedProd, you can create custom headers for different pages?

The theme builder lets you add custom headers for each page on your WordPress website. This way, you can show a customized header for different categories, tags, post types, page types, and more.

To start, you’ll need to go to SeedProd » Theme Builder from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add New Theme Template’ button.

Add a new theme template

A new popup window will appear where you’ll need to enter the theme template details.

Go ahead and enter a name for your theme template. After that, choose ‘Header’ as the template type from the dropdown menu. You can leave the ‘Priority’ field blank.

Next, you’ll need to enter the display conditions for your custom header. For example, we used the conditions where it will show on all posts and pages that are in the tutorials category.

Enter new theme template details

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button when you’re done.

After that, you can go ahead and edit the custom header using the SeedProd drag and drop theme builder.

Customize your custom header per page

When you’ve finished editing the custom header, simply click the ‘Save’ button at the top.

You can see more ideas on how to customize your header using SeedProd in our beginner’s guide on how to easily create a custom WordPress theme using the SeedProd theme builder.

Adding a Custom Header for Each Category

Most websites display the same header on all posts, pages, categories, and archive pages. However, you can display a different header for each WordPress category.

This can be done by adding code to your theme files, but you will have more control by using a theme builder.

We showed you earlier how to customize your header using the SeedProd theme builder plugin. SeedProd also allows you to create multiple custom headers and display them for different categories using conditional logic.

To create a new header, you need to navigate to SeedProd » Theme Builder and click the orange ‘Add New Theme Template’ button. Alternatively, you can duplicate your current header and use it as a starting point.

Add a New SeedProd Theme Template

A popup will be displayed where you can give the theme template a name and select ‘Header’ from the Type drop down menu.

You also need to enter a priority. This is used if more than one header meets the conditions for a certain page, and the header with the largest priority will be displayed. The default header has a priority of 0, so make sure you enter 1 or higher.

Make the Custom Header Visible Only for Certain Categories

After that, you’ll need to set up one or more conditions. This lets SeedProd know when to display a certain header. You simply select the conditions from drop down menus.

On the first two menus, you need to select ‘Include’ and then ‘Has Category’. In the last field, you should type the name of the category where you want the header to be displayed.

You can easily display the same header for multiple categories by clicking the ‘Add Condition’ button and including another category. When you’re finished, make sure you click the ‘Save’ button to save the new header.

Now you can customize the design of each new header using SeedProd’s drag and drop editor as we showed you earlier.

To learn more, including how to do this using code, see our guide on how to add custom header, footer, or sidebar for each category.

Add a Widget Area to Your WordPress Header

If you’re building a custom theme from scratch using code, then you might be looking to add a WordPress widget to your header to capture the attention of your visitors. Widgets allow you to add content blocks to specific sections of your theme easily, but not every theme includes a header widget area.

We mentioned earlier how simple it is to add widgets to your header using the SeedProd theme builder. But what if you wish to add a widget to a normal WordPress theme’s header?

Some themes, like the Astra theme, let you do this using the WordPress theme customizer. For example, Astra adds an option called ‘Header Builder’ that lets you completely customize the header, including adding widgets.

If your WordPress theme doesn’t currently have a WordPress widget area in the header, then you’ll need to add it manually by adding the following code to your functions.php file, in a site-specific plugin, or by using a code snippets plugin.

This is a more advanced option, since you’ll need to know where to place the code and how to style it using CSS.

function wpb_widgets_init() {
 
    register_sidebar( array(
        'name'          => 'Custom Header Widget Area',
        'id'            => 'custom-header-widget',
        'before_widget' => '<div class="chw-widget">',
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',
        'before_title'  => '<h2 class="chw-title">',
        'after_title'   => '</h2>',
    ) );
 
}
add_action( 'widgets_init', 'wpb_widgets_init' );

This code registers a new sidebar or a widget ready area for your theme.

If you go to Appearance » Widgets, then you will see a new widget area labeled ‘Custom Header Widget Area’. Now, you can add your widgets to this new area.

Custom header widget area

Finally, you need to add some code to your theme’s header template located in the header.php file of your theme. This will add the widget area you created earlier to your header so that the widgets will be displayed on your website.

You need to copy this code snippet and paste it where you want the widget to display.

<?php
 
if ( is_active_sidebar( 'custom-header-widget' ) ) : ?>
    <div id="header-widget-area" class="chw-widget-area widget-area" role="complementary">
    <?php dynamic_sidebar( 'custom-header-widget' ); ?>
    </div>
 
<?php endif; ?>

Depending on your theme, you may also need to add CSS to WordPress to control how the widget area is displayed.

For more details, see our guide on how to add a WordPress widget to your website header.

Add Random Header Images to Your WordPress Blog

Another way you can make your WordPress headers more attractive is by adding random images to the header section.

Showing images that randomly change helps capture your visitors’ attention and make your content more engaging.

To add random header images to your WordPress blog, you can use the theme customizer and upload images to the header section. This option may vary depending on the WordPress theme you’re using.

Next, go ahead and select the ‘Randomize uploaded headers’ option.

Randomize uploaded header images

If you want more control and flexibility in showing random images in the header section, then you can also use a WordPress plugin.

For more details, see our guide on how to add random header images to your WordPress blog.

Add Code to Your Website’s Header (Advanced)

Finally, if you’re wanting to add custom code to your website’s header section, you can do that easily from your WordPress dashboard. This method is recommended for advanced users and not suitable for beginners because it includes editing code and requires technical knowledge.

You can find your theme’s header files by going to Appearance » Theme File Editor from the WordPress admin panel. In the ‘style.css’ theme files, you can scroll down to the site header section and add or remove code.

Add custom code to theme files

Note: We don’t recommend that you directly edit the theme files because the slightest mistake can break your website and mess up the design.

An easier way of adding custom code to edit your site’s header is by using the Insert Headers and Footers plugin.

First, install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to Settings » Insert Headers and Footers from your WordPress dashboard. Next, enter the custom code in the ‘Scripts in Header’ section.

Insert headers and footers

After entering the code, save your changes.

For more details, you can see our guide on how to add header and footer code in WordPress.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to customize your WordPress header. You may also want to learn how to choose the best web design software, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Customize Your WordPress Header (Beginner’s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.


June 06, 2022 at 03:00PM

Saturday, June 4, 2022

How to Display Any RSS Feed on Your WordPress Blog

Are you looking to display RSS feeds from other websites on your WordPress blog?

RSS makes it easy to automatically pull content from other sites and display it on yours. This can boost user engagement, grow website traffic, and increase page views.

In this article, we’ll show you how to display any RSS feed on your WordPress blog.

How to Display Any RSS Feed on Your WordPress Blog

Why Display Any RSS Feed on Your WordPress Blog?

All WordPress blogs come with built-in support for RSS feeds. This allows your users to receive regular updates from your website using an RSS feed reader, like Feedly.

You can even use RSS feed integrations to send new post notifications to your users via email newsletters and push notifications.

Your blog’s RSS feed is simply the website’s address with /feed/ added at the end.
https://www.yourwebsite.com/feed/
What many people don’t know is that you can also use RSS to pull content from other websites into your own.

This lets you curate content from other websites and automatically display content from social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can even use WordPress as a news aggregator.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to display any RSS feed on your WordPress blog. We’ll cover four methods:

Displaying Any RSS Feed With a Widget

You can display an RSS feed on your WordPress blog using the built-in WordPress widget. Simply navigate to Appearance » Widgets and then click the blue block inserter button at the top of the screen.

The WordPress RSS Widget

Next, you need to locate the RSS widget and drag it onto your sidebar or other widget ready area. After that, you just need to type or paste the RSS feed that you wish to display.

For this tutorial, we’ll add WPBeginner’s RSS feed, which is located at https://wpbeginner.com/feed/. We’ll also add a title using a heading block.

Here’s how the RSS widget looks on our test WordPress blog.

WordPress RSS Widget Preview
Note that the default RSS widget comes with very basic features. For example, it doesn’t let you add thumbnails, social buttons, or other customizations. If you’d like to add those extra features, then it’s better to use a plugin.

Displaying Any RSS Feed With a Plugin

WP RSS Aggregator is the best WordPress RSS feed plugin. It lets you display RSS feeds on your WordPress blog, and by purchasing premium add-ons, you can turn your WordPress blog into a content aggregator without any coding.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free WP RSS Aggregator plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you will be asked to add your first RSS feed URL. For this tutorial, we’ll add https://wpbeginner.com/feed/. Once you’ve entered the feed URL, you need to click the ‘Next’ button at the bottom of the page.

Enter the Feed URL into WP RSS Aggregator's Settings

On the next page, you will see the latest feed items from the RSS feed you linked to.

You can click the ‘Create Draft Page’ button to add the feed to a new page draft, or use the shortcode on the right to add them to any post, page, or widget area.

Click the 'Create Draft Page' Button to Preview the RSS Feed

For this tutorial, we’ll click the ‘Create Draft Page’ button. The page is automatically created, and the button text changes to ‘Preview the Page’.

You can click on that button to preview the RSS feed on your website. This is a screenshot from our demo website.

WP RSS Aggregator Feed Preview

The page displays a bulleted list of links to the latest three posts in the feed, along with information about the source, and the date the post was published.

This plugin becomes a real powerhouse when you use their premium add-ons. These allow you to create separate posts for each RSS item and import the full text of each post. Others allow keyword filtering of RSS items, the ability to categorize each item, and much more.

WP RSS Aggregator Add-ons

Using these add-ons, this plugin can be used for auto-blogging. However, you should use care. Scraping full content from third-party websites may lead to copyright violations and legal trouble.

Displaying Social Media Feeds With a Plugin

Adding social media feeds to your WordPress blog can help increase your followers, improve social engagement, and enrich your existing content.

Smash Balloon is the best social media feed plugin for WordPress and is trusted by over 1.75 million users.

It’s actually a combination of plugins that make it easy to create and display custom feeds from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube on your WordPress blog.

Adding a Facebook Social Media Feed in WordPress

You can add a Facebook feed to your site by installing and activating the Smash Balloon Custom Facebook Feed plugin.

There’s also a free version that lets you create basic Facebook feeds, but it doesn’t include all the advanced features like embedding photos, albums, and more.

Smash Balloon lets you combine feeds from multiple Facebook pages and customize your Facebook feed’s appearance without coding.

The Smash Balloon Facebook Feed Plugin

For more details, see our guide on how to create a custom Facebook feed in WordPress.

Adding an Instagram Social Media Feed in WordPress

Smash Balloon Instagram Feed is the best Instagram feed plugin for WordPress. A pro and free version of the plugin is available.

This plugin lets you display Instagram content by hashtag or account. You can also show comments and like counts, include lightbox popups, and more.

The Smash Balloon Instagram Feed Plugin

You can learn how to use the plugin in our detailed guide on how to create a custom Instagram feed in WordPress.

Adding a Twitter Social Media Feed in WordPress

Smash Balloon Custom Twitter Feeds is the best Twitter feed plugin for WordPress, and there are pro and free versions available.

The plugin lets you do things like display multiple Twitter feeds, respond, like, and retweet while staying on your website, and show full tweets in lightboxes.

The Smash Balloon Custom Twitter Feeds Plugin

For more instructions on adding a Twitter feed to WordPress using this plugin, see our guide on how to embed tweets in WordPress.

Adding a YouTube Social Media Feed in WordPress

Feeds for YouTube by Smash Balloon is the best YouTube social media plugin available for WordPress, and there are pro and free versions of the plugin available.

The plugin lets you create a customizable gallery from all your channels, add live streaming, use advanced search queries to create custom feeds, and more.

You can also choose from different layout templates to change the appearance of your video feed.

The Feeds for YouTube by Smash Balloon Plugin

For more detailed instructions, see our guide on creating a YouTube gallery in WordPress.

Displaying Any RSS Feed Using Code

Using code, you can make use of a WordPress built-in function to display any RSS feed on your blog.

Simply paste the following code into any WordPress file that you choose. We recommend you create a custom page for this purpose.

<h2><?php _e( 'Recent news from Some-Other Blog:', 'my-text-domain' ); ?></h2>
 
<?php // Get RSS Feed(s)
include_once( ABSPATH . WPINC . '/feed.php' );
 
// Get a SimplePie feed object from the specified feed source.
$rss = fetch_feed( 'https://www.wpbeginner.com/feed/' );
 
if ( ! is_wp_error( $rss ) ) : // Checks that the object is created correctly
 
    // Figure out how many total items there are, but limit it to 5. 
    $maxitems = $rss->get_item_quantity( 5 ); 
 
    // Build an array of all the items, starting with element 0 (first element).
    $rss_items = $rss->get_items( 0, $maxitems );
 
endif;
?>
 
<ul>
    <?php if ( $maxitems == 0 ) : ?>
        <li><?php _e( 'No items', 'my-text-domain' ); ?></li>
    <?php else : ?>
        <?php // Loop through each feed item and display each item as a hyperlink. ?>
        <?php foreach ( $rss_items as $item ) : ?>
            <li>
                <a href="<?php echo esc_url( $item->get_permalink() ); ?>"
                    title="<?php printf( __( 'Posted %s', 'my-text-domain' ), $item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a') ); ?>">
                    <?php echo esc_html( $item->get_title() ); ?>
                </a>
            </li>
        <?php endforeach; ?>
    <?php endif; ?>
</ul>

You can customize this code by changing the title on Line 1, the feed’s URL on Line 7, the number of items to display on Line 12, and any other setting that you like.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to display any RSS feed on your WordPress blog. You may also want to see our comparison of the best domain name registrars, or check out our list of proven ways to make money online blogging with WordPress.

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The post How to Display Any RSS Feed on Your WordPress Blog first appeared on WPBeginner.


June 04, 2022 at 04:30PM