Most blogging platforms (including WordPress and Blogger) allow you to add RSS feeds as ‘widgets’ or ‘gadgets’.

All you need is the feed: http://www.omnifootball.co.uk/?s=world+cup&feed=rss2

Add that to your sidebar and with next-to-no-effort you’ve got a stream of the latest World Cup news and views from football bloggers.

You can also use the feed in a post (using an appropriate plug-in, we recommend RSS Just Better for WordPress) or to generate content pages.

Check out these sites already using OmniFootball’s RSS streams to generate content:

• LTLF – Nottingham Forest
• Footballer’s Empire
• Battrick League

If you want World Cup news on a specific country, select the team on the OmniFootball homepage and click the RSS feed link underneath the page title – we’ve got them all covered!

But here at OmniBlog we’ve just learned a valuable lesson in just how important they are – the hard way!

We use – and are happy to recommend – a WordPress plugin called Google XML Sitemaps, developed by Arne Brachhold, which not only automatically updates your sitemap whenever you update your site, but also send the new information direct to Google and other leading search engines.

A few weeks ago we were alarmed to see our daily visitor rates to OmniFootball plummet by nearly 70%!

We couldn’t work out why, after all we were adding sites faster than ever, until we realised that the Google XML Sitemap plugin had stopped working due to a glitch in our site.

Well, having restored the sitemap to its full potential again, we are happy to report that visitors and pageviews are back up to their normal levels. An important lesson learned in the value of an up-to-date XML file we felt we should pass on.

We’re also passing on the news that UK memorial website Lasting Tribute has just launched a range of blog content widgets and are offering free links on their site to any blogs who take up the offer. Free content and a link from a site with a decent Page Rank. Worth checking out.

Our system uses tags (known as labels on some blogging platforms) to sort blog posts into the appropriate category. Tags are keywords you add to a blog post to describe the various subjects you are blogging about. If you use good tagging, you will appear in the appropriate category pages on OmniBlog sites. This means people will be more likely to find your blog posts, and it also has SEO benefits.

Pace yourself

Every post by one of our listed blogs is guaranteed time on the homepage of whatever site(s) they are listed on, which is great exposure. But the sites are updated constantly, so posts on the front page are soon replaced by newer ones. If you make lots of posts in one go they will all appear together and all disappear together. Spread your posts out during the day to catch different readers at different times of day.

Use descriptive / intriguing headlines and intros

OmniBlog visitors generally only see your post title and the first few lines of your article – this is all you have to tempt them, so make sure you aren’t too vague or too long in getting to the point. For instance, no one is going to click on a headline called simply ‘News’ as this could be about anything. Make good use of your title and intro also helps you appear in search results, both on OmniBlog and search engines.

Don’t fight us!

If you search for one of your own blog posts on Google to see where it appears in their search results, you might see an OmniBlog link above your own! Don’t be disheartened by this. Without wanting to boast, Google loves us – our sites are huge, updated constantly and have had expert SEO treatment. That’s why our links get such high ranking. But when people click on them, they are still seeing your blog, reading your words and looking at your adverts. You don’t lose anything by being beaten by us on Google, only gain. Small blogs cannot compete with the many big professional websites out there. That’s why we created OmniBlog – to help push bloggers back up the listings to where they belong.

Keep in touch

Even at OmniBlog things go wrong (understatement of the year!). If you spot an error, say for instance you notice that your latest blog posts have stopped appearing on our site, please let us know. We very rarely remove posts or feeds from our sites without letting the blogger in question know, so the chances are you’ve been the victim of a glitch. If you bring it to our attention will we do whatever we can to sort it out as soon as possible so you don’t lose out on any traffic.

• If your blog isn’t already listed on OmniBlog, what are you waiting for? Submit it now