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)

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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".

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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.

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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
  

Click Here to Read Part 3!

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Please comment if you have any questions!!

From: The Publisher's Guide to Understanding RSS