If you run a Blog or any Website that publishes an updating RSS Feed then you should be using a free service called Feed Burner. Feed Burner is an online service owned by Google and being Google it tracks lots of goodies about your RSS Feed Subscribers for you.

Publishing feeds through FeedBurner greatly expands the methods of subscriptions that you can offer your possible new subscribers.

The standard way to monitor RSS Feeds is through a Feed Reader, like Google Reader's online service or News Gators Free Readers for PC, MAC, Mobile/Iphones and Outlook Express. When you publish through FeedBurner, you add more subscription options like, Email Subscriptions (instant newsletter), which is a huge bonus. As well as other services and tools like My Yahoo, FeedBlitz, FireFox Live Bookmarks, NewsGator, Bloglines and others.

 

Other Factors you may find Important:

  • You can setup FeedBurner to automatically ping Technorati, My Yahoo, Bloglines, Newsgator, Google Blog Search, and Ping-o-matic, helping list your articles in these services much faster and a possible huge boost for non-blogs. (Publicize Tab > Ping Shot - left menu)
  • Create and customize a Chicklets that shows off your total Feed Reader Count.
  • Use BuzzBoost to display the results of your RSS Feed on any page hosted by you or others. (Publicize Tab > BuzzBoost - left menu)
  • Instantly transfer over feeds or update old feeds with new feeds without losing any data.
  • FeedBurner also has a FeedFlares feature to cover all of your flare needs.
  • They also have API Services, Headline Animators, Display AdSense ads in feeds, publish PodCasts, merge and link feeds from popular services, and much more.
 

FeedBurner Statistics:
The Stats provided by FeedBurner aren't that extensive but they do cover the basics. The main Feed Stats Dashboard is quick to show off your average daily readers or your reach, total subscribers, as well as the most Popular Feed Items. Just under your total subscribers is a link to "See more about your subscribers," which contains some fun information.

With the subscriber breakdown open a pretty pie chart will display showing a breakdown of Feed Subscibers by Reader and Aggregator. The left menu contains other statistics such as live feed hits, item uses and uncommon uses.

 

FeedBurner Stats Pro:
FeedBurner Pro Stats (Free) gives you the ability to add additional tracking to your Website. The basic tracking services are great, but adding the Pro service adds in percentages of growth or decline, more details about your visitors, what pages they are on, and overall more incoming and outgoing click information.

 

FeedBurner is easy to use!
If you can surf the Internet, you can use FeedBurner. Start by creating an account and entering in your email address and your user/pass details. Once you login in, near the bottom is a form that says "Burn a feed right this instant."

Place your RSS Feed URL in the form and click Next.

On the next page enter your Feed Title and then the FeedBurner Feed Address. Make the FeedBurner Address something simple, like YourWebsiteName. No reason to blast keywords here, it won't help you. Now Activate the Feed, that's it!

Don't forget to swap out your old feed links with the new FeedBurner Feed Link, then add a Chicklet to the sidebar of your blog, and then toss up the email subscription box. The sooner you start using the FeedBurner tools the sooner you can start tracking and understanding a new set of statistics that you probably haven't ever seen before.

Be sure to subscribe to your own RSS Feed and Email Subscription Feeds to confirm that everything continually works.

 

Why FeedBurner?
Using FeedBurner has helped guide me to produce better articles. When I publish an article that others like, I can see it. After enough decent posts, I can see the trends of what my readers like. Like wise, when I publish information such as general news, the lack of views also helps guide me.

Out of all the provided tools and stats in FeedBurner, one thing about it stands out strong to me. Each time I update and see my Feed Reader Count increase it gives me a little extra boost of confidence knowing that what I'm doing is actually being followed and read by others, and that is a great feeling to have!

 

Check out FeedBurner

 

Thanks for Reading,
~TheDoc




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