Find More Newsfeed Subscribers
Buzz it
The Bloke is always getting questions about how to increase newsfeed subscriptions. There are of course many ways to accomplish this (besides writing great content to increase your traffic) but today I’m going discuss a different strategy.
Today’s modern browsers can auto-discover newsfeeds from your blog to make it easier to subscribe. Blog platforms such as Blogger and Wordpress enable that function by default with a bit of code that is inserted into the template.
Unfortunately that can also create problems if you are using the Feedburner service. That’s because it can confuse your readers with too many feed options to choose from. It will also dilute your Feedburner stats because some readers will unwittingly (or knowingly) subscribe to the blog’s default feed instead of your Feedburner links.
Because of this you probably already have more subscribers than you realize. One method that I’m going to discuss today is how to stop diluting your feed stats so that you can get a more accurate read on your subscribers. Your feed stats should also increase accordingly.
The best way that you can really know how many subscribers you have is to convert your feeds at Feedburner (now owned by Google). (If you are not already using Feedburner then you should.)
Why use Feedburner for Newsfeeds?
1. Feedburner will keep track of the number of feed subscribers that you have as well as provide a plethora of useful information. It will also make your feeds podcast compatible if wish and much, much more. You can read the Feedburner Faq for more information.
2. Feedburner can provide your subscribers with more feed options such as burning a full feed, a summary only feed or a headlines only version, etc.
3. By using only Feedburner links and removing your blog’s default settings it will be less confusing for your readers to choose from.
So how do you remove your blog’s default newsfeeds and use only Feedburner?
You do that by removing the default metadata from your blog template. Let me show you how. It’s easy peasy.
First, (if you haven’t already) convert your default atom or rss feed into a Feedburner version by getting a free account and burning your new feed link.
Next, you remove the default feed metadata from your blog template by doing the following.
New Blogger users should delete the following line of code (below the <head> tag):
<b:include data=’blog’ name=’all-head-content’/>
Next, add the following line of code into your Blogger template (below the <head> tag):
<link href=’http://feeds.feedburner.com/your_feedburner_link‘ rel=’alternate’ title=’Your Feed Title’ type=’application/rss+xml’/>
Wordpress users should change the following lines of code:
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss xml” title=”RSS 2.0″ href=”<?php bloginfo(’rss2_url’); ?>” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”text/xml” title=”RSS .92″ href=”<?php bloginfo(’rss_url’); ?>” />
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/atom xml” title=”Atom 0.3″ href=”<?php bloginfo(’atom_url’); ?>” />
TO something like this:
<link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss xml” title=”RSS 2.0″ href=”your_feedburner_link” /
And that’s it! Now you can keep track of ALL of your subscribers without your stats being diluted by the default feeds.
So get tracking your subscribers and watch the numbers grow. It’s more fun than watching the stock market. Seriously!
Similar reading: Feedburner Pro is now FREE!
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You’re a doll Bloke but I don’t think there is a way you can dumb all this down so I can understand. I had no idea bloggin’ could be so dawg gone complicated. I’ll just watch the puts I bought on GRMN lose me money for now. Thanks anyway.
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One step at a time Tica. As far as watching ticker symbols go I don’t how anybody can follow that stuff. Makes my dizzy.
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Did you see today’s news? Feedburner has made the PRO utilities FREE as of today!
Woo Hoo!
You must be prescient, Instabloke, because you made this explanation just before they announced!
All the best,
CLKL
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Yes that is good news. It’s just one more reason why I’m betting with Google and Blogger over the long haul.
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