Add the Latest Garden News

If you read the RSS Primer for Garden Bloggers, then you know that you can add pretty much any content to your blog that has an RSS feed (and for which you have permission).

If you have a non-commercial website, you can add a stream of garden news to your site giving your visitors a glimpe of what's happening on your topic around the world.

There are several sites that let you do this, but I'm going to use Google News for this demonstration. You can also create news on any subject, but I'm going to use an example blog all about Michelia figo (my favorite shrub).

Let's say that my blog extols the virtue of Michelia figo, and I scour the web (or use Google Reader to do it for me) to come up with the latest news on this shrub. Then I write the paragraph summarizing the news, then I post it with a link back to the original content.

That's sufficient, but inefficient. I can use RSS to automatically update my blog to include news subjects that include the keywords "Michelia figo".

First, go the Google News (http://news.google.com/).

Now, in the search at the top of the page, type in your search words (in my case "Michelia figo").

You'll see all the results for the search.  Assuming you have what you want, scroll the the bottom of the page and look for the RSS logo.  If you don't know what that is, go back to the Primer and start again.

Right-click (control-click on  a Mac) and copy the shortcut to the RSS feed.  Now you can add it to your site just like you add other RSS content.