How to set up RSS Feeds on your Joomla Website

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a scripting language that is used to regularly update web content. This content may be in various forms from blogs to press releases. RSS has proven to be a boon for web masters across the globe because it is an easy way to update your website, as you will be receiving feeds from other web publishers who also syndicate their content.

Joomla websites are designed with a built-in RSS aggregator that is called the “Syndicate”. Owing to this, you don’t have to download an extension. The aggregator makes it relatively easy to add RSS feeds to your website.

1. Start by logging into your Joomla admin page to define the categories. Click on the “Components” button at the top in the menu. In the drop down menu, you should select the “News Feed” button and click on “Manage Categories”. Next, click on the “New” tab to add a new category. On the following page, enter all the relevant information of your category.


2. In the “Category Title Field”, enter the name of the category and this name will then appear on the menus. In the “Category Field”, you should enter the name that you want to appear on the web page that actually displays your news feeds. Enter an image for this category in the “Image” field. In the “Access Level” menu, add the access levels if you want only a few select visitors to read your feeds. Save this category after you enter a description for it.
3. Surf the net for other websites that syndicate their content and choose the ones that you would like to use for your news feeds. Put this selection in the Joomla news feeds components and follow the steps mentioned below.


4. In the main menu, click on the “Components” tab and then choose “News Feeds” in the drop down box. Next, click on “Manage News Feeds” and select a category. Now you can paste your RSS feed into the link field. Select the maximum number of articles or blogs that you want posted and also select a cache time. Save this when you are done.


5. Now you can test your RSS feed by subscribing through the feed reader. This allows you to verify whether your website visitors are actually receiving information from you.