blogspot Feedburner setting setup

Although I am just getting started blogging on my site, this is one post I have been aching to write even before my new website launched. Feedburner is no doubt the most popular method for emailing blog posts to subscribers. However, I think many users do not realize its potential and all the ways the service can be utilized to maximize readership and sharing. This post will take you through 5 major ways to easily optimize your Feedburner account.
I’m going to walk you through one of my client’s Feedburner’s accounts because she is really active at testing which methods work best for her readers. Keep in mind not all optimization techniques work for all types of markets. In my opinion, this is true for much of the online marketing advice out there. Sometimes generalized assumptions may not work well for your type of customers or readers. You need to experiment and test and find which method works best for your business.
(By the way, check out Barbara Bussey’s Interior Design Blog over at The Treasured Home. She has built quite a following and is becoming very well connected in the Interior Design blogging circle)

Take 10 minutes to optimize your Feedburner emails with these 5 options and you will see how powerful your blog posts can be to your subscribers.

To Summarize or Not to Summarize?

Well, that is the question. Did you know you do not have to email your full blog post to your subscribers? This is the default setting so most Feedburner users just leave that option as is. Isn’t the point to bring more visitors to your site? Then why not entice them with an excerpt of your post and then they will have to click to read more on your site. Barbara and I tested this versus the full summary of the post and MAN oh MAN what a difference it made in the amount of comments and click throughs to her site. Here is how you do it:

Unfortunately there is no Read More –>; link that can be added, so you need to direct the reader to click on the title to continue reading the post. It’s a workaround, but it works, as long as you keep the maximum length short enough that the reader wants more and long enough that they get an idea of what the post is about. 200 characters usually works well.

What the reader sees is this – short, sweet, and wanting more. As always tell them what you want them to do next “Click on the title to continue reading the post”.

 Add Your Logo

You may have noticed in the screen shot above The Treasured Home’s logo next to the blog title. It never hurts to keep reminding people who you are – so use that logo of yours. It is easy to add in Feedburner – just copy and paste the URL of your logo here:

 Subject = Blog Title

This is a big one for me. It surprises me how many people just leave the default for this one. Often times Feedburner emails will have the same static subject every time which may even be the same as the sender’s name. Therefore you receive an email that reads “The Treasured Home Blog” from “The Treasured Home” once a week. If your readers see the same subject line every week, do you really think they are excited to open that email? I certainly am not. So there is a very easy automated way to change that subject line:

 Quick Link to Comments

One of the coolest parts of Feedburner’s many options is FeedFlare or share links in the footer. Many of you may have activated those already (please do if you haven’t yet). However, I believe one of the most effective footer links in the Feedburner email is the Comments link. Right away you can see how many comments there have been on the blog post and once readers see there are comments they are more intrigued to read the post and make a comment themselves. Here is how you do that.

And this is what it looks like in an email – a quick link to the comments of that particular post.

 Set the Time of Email Delivery

Have you ever wondered what the best time is to send emails to your subscribers? Did you know you could change the time frame in which your post emails are sent through Feedburner? Well you can and why not test it? Barbara and I did just that and found out that super early in the morning was best for her market. Even though she lives in California, many of her blog readers live in New York. Most of her comments were made in the morning so she decided to switch her sending time from 11am Pacific Time to 1-3am Pacific/4-7 am Eastern. Many of her readers (just like myself) sip a cup of coffee and grab their smart phone or iPad and read their favorite blogs first thing in the morning (my dad is still confused why I no longer read a real newspaper – but that’s another post). Almost every morning Barbara’s posts are sitting waiting her subscriber’s inboxes when they wake up. We have seen a big jump in readership and comments because of this move.
This is how it is done. I suggest testing a different time every 60 days and see if there is a difference in activity.

SOME TIPS:
1. Make sure your the time in your WordPress settings is in YOUR time zone. This will throw the delivery timing off if it isn’t.
2. Make sure when you schedule a blog that is timed BEFORE the scheduled Email Delivery time in Feedburner. (Obvious – but I goofed on this one a couple times).
3. This screen is also where you can DEACTIVATE sending emails from Feedburner all together if you still want to keep your account active but just want to stop email service. 

How to Optimize Feed Burner?

If you just create your feed and don't go for optimization then you won't be benefited properly from Google FeedBurner. By following some simple steps you can optimize your FeedBurner account. First enter into your FeedBurner account and click on your Feed name and now follow the below steps for feed configuration.

Step 1 Click on Analyze tab then Configure Stats and put tick on all checkbox. By default it all option will be ticked. So just check it all ticked or not and simply click on Save button.

Step 2 Now click on Optimize tab and it this step we will activate the SmartFeed that will help your feed compatibility with any feed and FeedFlare for better optimizing. But more importantly BrowserFriendly should keep active and by default it will be activated. So click on SmartFeed and press the Active button. Similarly in case of FeedFlare  activate it. Remeber that under FeedFlare put tick on all checkbox.

Step 1 Sing in to your FeedBurner account and enter into the Feed.

Step 2 Now Click on Publicize tab and click on Email Subscriptions link or left side of the screen.

Step 3 And again click on Activate button. It will display code for Email Subscriptions option.

Step 4 Simply copy the code and paste it in your WordPress blog. Mostly this code hoes to WordPress Sidebar. So for adding the code follow the below steps-

Step  1 Sing in to your WordPress account and go the Dashboard.

Step 2 Now from Dashboard go to Appearance ->Editor

Step 3 Now find sidebar.php link from right sidebar of the screen and add the code there.

You can customize the email subscription box by different coding. 
Geotag your Feed : Some readers of your feed are interested in knowing the location from where you blog. This setting identifies the feed location in terms of latitude and longitude.

NoIndex is an option from SEO perspective. Generally you would not like duplicate content of your blog which can be penalized by search engines algorithms. Just by clicking the option “Indicate that your feed should not be indexed by search engines“, you can be safe from Google penalization in search engine results.
Title, Description Burner

Add a title and description that catches your reader!

This is a pretty self-explanatory feature as well and it just takes a second or two.
Here’s what it would look like in the real:

Burn a text-based description!

Pretty slick, right? Do it – just takes a second.
 Browser Friendly

As you can see I’ve activated Browser Friendly with the following settings.
One of the neat things here is that I’ve enabled a “Personal Message” that is completely optional but you might as well do to provide that unique touch of a personal message to your faithful readers.
It eventually looks like this via the feed:

Give it that personal touch!
 Enable Smart Feed

Make it the most compatible possible!

This section is easy: Just enable the service! It’s pretty self-explanatory so you can read it for yourself.
FeedFlare

I only use there 3.

FeedFlare is an interesting option that I’ve had very mixed results. To spare you a long-winded explanation I’ll just say that it’s worth it enough to turn it on for the few times that people click through it and I’ve seen a better return on its use when you minimize the choices that you give your audience (or it looks like a wild mess).
I use only Stumble It, Email This and Share on Facebook in that order:

You can drag to re-order if you like.

You can, of course, add more to your own personal liking but beware of how it eventually appears in someone’s reader! A few tests will give you insight very quickly.
Feed Image Burner

Feed Image Burner can help give your feeds some personality.

Feed Image Burner gives your feeds some class and personality! I’m always surprised to see how many bloggers don’t spend the few seconds it takes to add a custom image to their feeds to give it some pizzazz!
You can see the custom image URL here in Firefox:

Love me some Firefox!

And then here in Chrome:

Love me some Chrome too!

Of course, there are some browsers (and RSS Feed Readers) that won’t bring in your burned image, like Safari:

Love me some Safari! ... But no Image Burn!

In either case go for it! Just upload that image (max size of 144 pixels height and width) and then give your feed some more personal flavor!