Disclaimer: You don't necessarily have to have an Activerain blog to apply these principals.
In my last post, I reviewed the basic concept of RSS and how it can be used as a syndication tool. Alot of people use RSS readers, or have signed up to RSS via email without even knowing it... but many people don't seem to grasp the value of being an RSS publisher. If you have a blog, you ARE an RSS publisher whether you knew it or not!
If you don't have a solid understanding of RSS, don't know how to find your own feed, or aren't yet signed up for Feedburner, make sure to read my last post to review before you move on with this one.
Click Here to Read My Last Post:
The Ultimate (& Practical) Guide To Optimizing Your RSS Feed (Part 1)
======
Moving forward, you should have a firm understanding of what RSS is, how to find your RSS feed, and how to subscribe with Feedburner. As I went over last time, Feedburner is a great tool for expanding the reach of your RSS feed and essentially gives your readers more options.
Understanding Feedburner Email Subscription Options
One of the primary benefits of using Feedburner is the ability to let your readers subscribe to receive future articles via email. If you don't understand the significance of this... trust me... it's huge. The ability to "push" your content to subscribers is revolutionary. And email delivery does just that.
So let's cover the basics.
First, you'll need to activate this feature within Feedburner. Login to Feedburner, Navigate to the "Publicize" tab, Click "Email Subscriptions" in the sidebar, and click "Activate". I highly recommend that you keep the default settings.
Now that it's activated, let's review some of your choices. The first screen will immediately give you an option to create a form to capture new email subscribers. Let's put this in our ActiveRain sidebar to give people more subscription options.
Setting Up A Feedburner Email Subscription Box in My ActiveRain Sidebar
Step 1: Copy and Paste the html in the box as shown below.
Step 2: Navigate to "My Settings" in your ActiveRain account. Under the "Blog Description" box, paste in the html code for the email form. If you are up for it, you can even change the text that appears within the box. The default says: "Enter your email address". I like mine to be more descriptive... something like: "Enter your email to receive future articles:".
Step 3: Admire your fine work. Go to your blog and make sure it looks ok.
Before you're finished with the email subscription options, make sure to visit the "communication preferences", "email branding", and "delivery options" sections in feeedburner to set those up. While you're at it, go ahead and activate "Ping Shot" which is just below "delivery options".
======
Now that you have an email subscription box set up, lets quickly review one more option in feedburner. Navigate to the "Optimize" tab, and click on "FeedFlare". This is a unique option that allows you to add extra features to the bottom of your feed. In this example, I've chosen the ones that I like to use, but the choice is completely yours.
You'll find a host of options within your Feedburner account that I don't have time to review here. Many of them won't apply to you unless you plan to post podcasts, place advertisements in your RSS feed, or want to Geotag your post with a location. So you don't really need to worry about most of them.
Now that you have Feedburner set up properly, and have given your readers an easy way to subscribe, the only thing left to do is promote your feed which I will covering in my next post.
~Homework~ Get your Feedburner email subscription form set up on your blog. Then, make sure to subscribe to this blog so you can read the third and final part of this RSS Series.
======
In the 3rd and final part of this RSS series, I'll show you how to:
- Improve your RSS subscriber count
- Analyze Feedburner subscriber data
- Promote your email subscription form
- Add Subscription options to blog posts
======
Please comment if you have any questions!!
I had to bookmark this ....... maybe with a clearer head I could grasp a little more than I did....I probably have to learn basics first! I just know so little about this stuff, but just bought a book for dummies......maybe it will help!
Wow, this is very detailed. Thank you for the great info!
Bookmarking this so I can come back and make sure i do it right. Thanks for the post and info. appreciate it.
Justin - Excellent! This is one of the best things you can do with your blog. I still don't understand why so many here are obsessed with making buttons to get other users to subscribe to their blog when they should be concentrating on consumer subscriptions.
Justin,
Thanks for the reminder. We use Feedburner for all our other blogs at work. I should have set this up a while ago. Feedburner is a great service.
thanks for the information. I am going to have get that set up right away
I second Bill's sentiment. Why people are so overly obsessed with 'seeing' their own posts, filling their blogs with eye candy, and yet not take some of these basic steps to being 'found' my consumers is beyond me....
Justin, I only wish I could easily grasp all this stuff but I need to get my sister to help me so I'll be back!
Justin, I have to bookmark this post so I can come back and study it. So much information for us novices. Thanks for the help!!
Hi Justin, thank you for the great information I just red your post on RSS this I will have to save for next time
Thanks! It never occured to me to use Feedburner with Aciverain.
Wow! I'm so glad I came across this post. Not only have I read your last 3 posts (my head can't take any more info now), I've also subscribed to your blog. While you share a ton of information, you make it easy (relatively) to follow. Thank you.
Lots to take in all at once, but intriguing!
Larry
Hi Justin;
Great information and tips, thank you for sharing.
Anthony
Justin - I have bookmarked this. I have a feedburner account but it is on my typepad blog not AR. I obviously need to put this one in too.
Good grief, I've used feedburner for my "other blog" since day 8 or 9, but never thought about the subscription option as an addition to my AR blog sidebar - THANK YOU!
I have bookmarked this post for when I have time to actually figure it out.....thanks for the info....wish I could take in everything AR members have to offer.....
Oh my gosh, I cannot thank you enough for explaining this in a step by step process that helps to make it easy for us who have trouble learning the tech side of active rain. I consistently bookmark your posts so that I can go back and utilize the great tips! I appreciate the fact that folks like you are here to help!
Pretty cool stuff. I thought I knew a lot but I did not know much about RSS. Its a good read for sure. I set up it up just now.
Thanks for this information. I have to bookmark this post .
Justin...more optimization that I need to do... Thanks!
I just taught a class on ActiveRain at my office but we just barely scratched the surface on set-up. I need to send this to all of them but easy does it since they're still in set-up mode!
Great post! Makes you think. I should be ready for my last class in a couple of weeks. Had the Hurricane vacation. Got a couple of more things to do. The site was #3 on google today for my main terms. Will bookmark this. Thanks
Good stuff, Justin - I think I'm going to have to make some time to do some serious work on optimizing my blog and getting to work on RSS feeds. Thanks for the coaching here!
Justin - it's nice to see you doing these posts, there use to only be a few of us, this is a great help and you're a real value to the members here by sharing this stuff. Thanks. :-)
Thanks for the information. It is info overload. I need some time to figure it all out. Thanks for the great instruction.
Thanks Justin... I noticed on the optimize the facebook link... if I checked that will my blog appear in facebook, or do I have to some how link it and enter more info?
Hi Jason, this was excellent and I picked up some of the best points , especially in the e-mail subscription. I have some work to do and then I want to get you and Jim to fix my site up with a new look and some new functionality. Thanks Jason, this is a great post.
I have bookmarked this. I love step by step instructions to help those of us who are still learning different aspects. I also need to look at your previous post. Thank you.
Exceptional information. Thanks for the update.
Hi Justin! Thanks for walking me through the email subscription. I was wondering how some of my friends on AR did that!
Justin ...., awesome home work for me .... thank you!
Bookmarked! Thanks for the useful information.
How cool! Looking forward to getting it on my blog after I get the kids to school. Thanks for the great information.
Justin, thanks for the great information as always. I've had one of my clients set up with a blog + feedblitz subscription for a while. I know it allows you to customize the email portion, decide to automatically send blog updates or choose which ones to send and more. I assume feedburner is very similar. Tough to believe both great tools are available for free.
Ok so I am going to vent a little more about the subscribe button everyone loves to add to their posts. Does everyone realize when a consumer presses that button to subscribe they get a big ole ERROR message!!!!
Not the kind of thing you want as you will quickly lose someone coming back. Everyone should concentrate on the consumer and not how many AR subscribers they can get.
My blog is already syndicated on Blogburst but for some reason it wasn't activated on feedburner but now it is...thanks
I'm going to bookmark this and come back after a little more coffee. Thanks for sharing such valuable information.
Thanks for the detailed instructions. This must have taken you a while to compile.
Good Info, I use feedburner, and how to get the HTML into the sidebar...I need to bookmark.
Love your banner.
John March
VERY cool, thanks! Am going to set this up as soon as I can.
This is great information. I just created a new blog and don't yet have a subcribe to on it so the timing of this is perfect. Thanks!
Another eye-opening post, Justin. So much important stuff that never occurs to me to even wonder about untill I read your blog. Thanks.
Thank you Justin. Excellent information. Marked as a must do.
Justin,
You are the best when it comes to this stuff. I am still working on applying your last lesson. I am going to subscribe to your blog as soon as I get done writing this comment:)
I never would have figured this stuff out, thanks a million
Thanks, Justin. I implemented your suggestion so hopefully my consumer count will increase. The tomatoes are working on a new blogsite for us that I feel like its the day before Christmas. I can't hardly stand the waiting.
thanks for the tip!
thanks just, always helpful when this type of thing is translated into a language we realtors can understand
Justin,
Thank you for all of the information you've provided! I have just signed up with Feed Burner and have added the subscription feature to my blog as well as the other things you suggested; I appreciate your ste-by-step directions. I look forward to learning more about blogging from your blog.
Thanks,
Anne Rains
www.LadyofRealty.blogspot.com
www.TheRainsTeam.com
Excellent post. I am glad I did this. Ive been meaning to implement this for a long time. Had gone in and signed up a long time ago but never finished it. Thanks for reminding me to do this. Bob H.
Justin~ OK, this is way over my head. I am going to have to come back and re-read it and see if I can come to terms with it.....
Aloha Justin,
Fantastic post and thank you for sharing your knowledge! I've spent the past two days expanding on what you have posted and I've learned quite a bit. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Peace,
Justin, thanks very much for the info. I am new to blogging, but the blogs I have written are getting lots of feedback.. If I can supercharge them, I will be in business
Justin,
That was excellent information and thank you for taking the time to walk us through the whole deal.
Okay, so far I have made it through part 1 and now part 2. Not sure if I did everything right, but followed your instructions. Can't wait for part 3. Thanks so much for teaching me something about RSS feeds.
I cannot tell you how helpful this post is. I have been stumbling around feedburner for a while and this made it so simple to get up and running and optimized. Thanks!
Justin, Thanks for this post. I followed the instructions but when I check my blog, my subscription box isn't there. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I've re-read the instructions. Any suggestions? How could I have messed it up?
Ok, nevermind. I copied the wrong html. Thanks for the info!!
Great Information. Thanks for posting.
Interesting, I wondered what the purpose of the FeedBurner links people had on their websites and blog s where all about. Just one more thing to add to my web Knowledge database, seems like I find something new every week. Thanks!
Glad to see this info and the post. I need to set mine up. Thanks.
Hi Justin ~ Two down and one to go. So far, my non-techie mind is doing okay, so this means you are doing a good job! Thanks...
Hi Justin, I'm still working on this. Apparently the Feedburner system does not like html created by MS products such as FrontPage (many of my posts) and MS Word. Thus, I'm learning to use TidyATL to clean up the html and try to get the feed to work. Thanks! John
wow. I think I got it all...for now....there is so much TECH stufff to learn.
Bookmarked this for implementation on a rainy day :)
Thanks
Sincerely,
Grace
Whoa! I think I did it. Finally, should have done this a long time ago! Now ready for some activity. Thanks Justin ~Rita
Okay I just set this all up - thank you so much!!!
I can't believe I missed this one - and I'm a subscriber, shame on me - awesome! Thanks to Jason for mentioning how he did it. ~ Anne Marie
Thank you. I'll be going through this step by step to make sure I get it right this time. Really appreciate all the work it probably took for you to put this together. Take Care,
Wow. You are one smart tomato. THanks for sharing this. My eyes were WIDE open figuring it all out. Thanks! KM
Is there a step by step guide out there on how to post a feed onto a website. I am trying to get a rss feed onto my homepage but am at a lost for words. And my eyes are blury from too much computer screen time trying to figure this one out!
Thanks for the information. I thought it was going to be complicated but I did exactly what you said and it was pretty simple.
Justin you have been a God-send with all the information you provide...especially with this 3-part series. Thank you so much!
I know I've read this before, but I'm coming across it again and appreciate the tutorial.
OK -- got the Feedburner basics to work, and now have the link on my blog. The html for the form no longer seems to work -- but that's OK. Thanks!