RSS Series: How do I burn my blog’s RSS feed with Feedburner?

Today I’m starting a five-part series about RSS and why you need it. Throughout the series you’ll learn

• what RSS is and why you need to make sure you’re offering it (Pt. 1)
• how to burn a feed with Feedburner (Pt. 1)
• how to offer your readers RSS via e-mail (Pt. 2)
• how to customize your RSS button and install it on your sidebar (Pt. 3)
• whether you should offer full or partial feeds (and what those are) (Pt. 4)
• what your options are for monetizing your feed (Pt. 5)

Let’s get started!

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and it’s a way of letting your readers know when you update your site with new content. Your readers can subscribe to your RSS feed, set up an account with a feed reader (e.g., Google Reader), and then, when you update your site, the feed reader shows that content in your readers’ feed readers. This video explains RSS in the simplest way I’ve seen:

Now that you know what RSS is, how it works, and why your readers want it, you need to find out what your RSS feed is and make sure you’re providing a clear option for subscribing to your blog. Most blog platforms provide a basic feed for you when you set up your blog. These links will help you find the RSS your platform provides:

• How to find your TypePad RSS
• How to find your Blogger RSS
• How to find your WordPress.org RSS

While it’s true that you can use the default RSS your blog platform provides, most people opt to burn a feed with Feedburner. Feeburner is free, allows you to manage multiple blog feeds in one place, and provides statistics about your subscribers. Feedburner offers so many features I can’t list them all here, but I strongly suggest you take a look through your Feedburner dashboard (after you set up your account) and see what you’ve been missing.

To burn your feed with Feedburner, just follow these instructions:

1. Go to http://www.feedburner.com. You’ll see a welcome page similar to this:
   
2. Type your blog’s URL into the text box under Burn a feed right this instant. If you’re a podcaster, check that box as well.
3. Click the Next button. You’ll see a page similar to this:
   

   You’ll see the name of your blog (Feed Title) and your Feed Address.

4. Click the Next button. You’ll see a note congratulating you on claiming your feed. You’ll also see your feed’s RSS link. This is the link you’ll use when providing a subscription link for your readers.
   
5. Click the Next button. You’ll see a page similar to this:
   

   This is where you can choose additional features for Feedburner to track for your feed. Check the boxes of the features you want to include. I suggest checking them all; if you find you don’t need the stats for those items, you can change your preferences later.

6. Click the Next button. You’ll see a page that looks like this (it’s actually longer and has more info, but my screen capture cut it off):
   

   This page lists several blog platforms (click on yours to integrate your Feedburner feed with your site) and provides links for you to get even more out of your feed (Publicize, Optimize, Analyze, Monetize, and Troubleshootize).

7. Choose your blog platform from the list and follow Feedburner’s instructions from there.

After you integrate your Feedburner feed with your blog, I strongly suggest clicking around under each option (Publicize, Optimize, Analyze, Monetize, and Troubleshootize) to see what “extras” you can find that are a fit with your blog. As your blog grows, you may find that some items are more helpful than others or that some items aren’t a fit with your blog. You can turn things on and off as you see fit.

This article was cross-posted at BlogHer.com.

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