How to use the RSS widget and where is your RSS feed?

How do I use the RSS widget?

The RSS widget is for including the feeds from any other blog or site you may want to highlight in your sidebar. In the backend menus, go to Presentation, then Widgets. Find the RSS 1 widget in the box near the bottom and drag it up to your sidebar. It will turn from a block to a longer rectangle, and there will be a small box with lines on the right. When the widget is in place, click on that box with lines. Up will pop a box where you can add the feed address from whatever blog you’d like to highlight.

If you have another blog, you can put the feed address in here, and excerpts of the other blog’s posts will show in the sidebar area. Or you could put in the feed address of a popular new site, in a category feed pertaining to your cause.

What is my blog’s RSS feed address?

For your own blog’s RSS feed, you can find the link in the top left sidebar. Usually it is yourblog.mylocalcause.com/feed/, although the following options all work.

http://example.com/feed/
http://example.com/feed/rss/
http://example.com/feed/rss2/
http://example.com/feed/rdf/
http://example.com/feed/atom/

How to set up polls

To make a poll for your visitors to use, first follow the instructions here to activate it. Next, you’ll want to set up your poll. In your admin area, you’ll see a new menu item called Polls. Click it.

The Polls menu has a few sub-menu items.

• Manage polls
• Add poll
• Poll options
• Poll usage

Click on "Add Poll".  Here you’ll see there’s space for a question. Fill this out with your poll question. Below are spots for two answers. This is handy for yes/no polls. If you want more options, you can click on "add answer" to add more choices.

The next set of options is if you want your visitors to be able to choose more than one answer.

You can then choose if you want your poll to expire after a certain time, meaning visitors can no longer vote after a set date, or you can leave it open forever.

Click "add poll" to save. If you have already dragged the poll widget to your sidebar, you should then see your new poll there on the front page of your blog.

You can also embed a poll in a post or page. The "poll usage" menu item explains further on how to do this, but it’s quite simple. Just insert [ poll=2 ]  in your post where the number is the ID number of your poll. You can find this ID number the "manage polls" tab.

The poll options menu allows further customization if you really want to get fancy.

Video Blog Tutorials

These video tutorials are more comprehensive than the pages on the left sidebar. These would be excellent as an aid for a beginner.

The first video is about the crucial basics of any blog–posts and pages.

Blog Tutorial 1: Posts and Pages

The second video teaches you how to edit your blog.

Blog Tutorial 2: Editing Your Blog

The videos in the sidebars are also helpful in figuring out how to use WordPress!

Hello :)

This blog is a how-to guide to establishing a blog at MyLocalCause.com. The pages on the left sidebar will help you get acquainted with our WordPress interface and get you started on making your blog. Our goal is to make MyLocalCause.com as user-friendly as can be–if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! Please email me, Xiaoxiao Lin, at xiaoxiao@mylocalcause.com for any inquiries you may have.