As we head into week three of this series on Widgets to enhance your Outside Blog, I decided this week I was going to dig into a widget that is a little more complex to set up, but the rewards are even greater. Remember the famous line from Spider Man by Uncle Ben? With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.
This week we are going to discuss the FeedBurner Widget. What is FeedBurner? Feedburner does a plethora of things, but the feature we are going to talk today allows visitors to your blog that enjoy your posts to subscribe to your blog and have the blog show up directly in their inbox each time you write a new post.
Now, while I said this is a little more complex to set up, let me assure you that you do not need a Phd. in computer programming to set this up. First, you need to go to Feedburner and sign up.
After you have signed up for Feedburner you will then need to do is burn a new feed. Or, set up a link that you want people to be able to subscribe to. You will see a box that will look similar to this:
Enter the web address you wish to burn and click next. You will then be sent here:
In this box, you will title your your feed and the Address. The title you place is is what will show up as the subject line on every email that shows up in someones inbox, so be careful how you title your burn. After you title your feed and click next a few more times, your feed will be complete. There are a few options you can use to customize your feed even more, but I would suggest not tampering with the default settings unless you really know what you are doing.
Now that we have created the feed, it is time to publish. To publish, you will click on the Publicize tab as seen below.
When you go to the publicize tab a box containing you will then need to click on the email subscriptions on the left side and Activate the Service
The final step on the feedburner site is to copy the Subscription Form Code. This is the code needed to create the widget on your Outside Blog. Make sure when you copy that you copy all of the code or the widget will give you an error message.
The final step in this process is to add the widget FeedBurner (email) to your outside blog. As always, log into your blog, click on the manage my widgets button and add FeedBurner (email) widget. You will then paste in the code in the box and click update.
Congratulations! You have just added the FeedBurner Email Widget to your Blog!
So what are you waiting for? Go add this Widget today! if you have not set up your Outside Blog yet, go do it now! If you are not sure how to set up an ActiveBlog, as usual, Brad has written a tutorial here.
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Good stuff. I use it already. I love my outside blog.
Jeremy, thank you for the tip. We are going to get on this right away. Steven and Marti
Hi Jeremy...Great suggestion and explanation however I just went through the process to see an error message after I activated my feed...seems the activate Service is currently inactive :O(
FeedBurner encountered an error adding your feed to feedburner.
Ops..It's working Now, I guess you need to give feed burner time :O))
Jeremy, I just did it and your instructions were perfect! How can I check it to see if it's working properly? Your tutorials are great and I am following right along. Thanks so much!!!!
Jeremy, One other question, dumb I'm sure, but how wlil I know if people subscribe to my blog via feedburner?
Barb- You can visit the feedburner site and it will update. It does take it some time to update the info, but it will over time.
Thanks as always for the tip Jeremy. I love my outside blog.
dan
Great news, Jeremy! If you hurry, you might be able to be the very 1st to subscribe to my outside blog. I knew that would please you.
Once again, thanks very much for clear steps that anyone can follow.
Jer...
Excellent tutorial ... I'll install the Feedburner widget ASAP on both of my outside blogs! Thanks for the information.
Between you and Ryan Shaughnessy, my bookmarks are OVERFLOWING! You are the master at tutorials, aren't you Jeremy?! Thanks for being so generous with your wealth of knowledge!
Jeremy, you are the master! You have such a logical way of explaning, even a dolt like me could follow... thank you!
Jeremy - I love the Feedburner widget, and it was one of the first things I installed on my outside blog. For some reason, it doesn't appear to work on the main AR blog any more?
Jeremy, ok, I guess it's time to get my outside blog! Have to just so I can try this. Thanks for keeping us all informed.
Very cool Jeremy...I am bookmarking to come back and try it out tomorrow.
Very helpful, your informative and descriptive post on feedburner was easy to follow! Thank you Jeremy! That will be helpful on my outside blog!
Jason- I hope to have an answer on that soon.
Very cool stuff. I hope to have my blog up and running shortly. (After I feel like I kind of know what I am doing.) You guys make it seem so easy. I know I just need to jump in... and then I be blogging away. Right?? ~ Kim
You have a wonderful way of making things comprehendable. I think I can do this. Thanks for this tutorial on feedburner.
Wow! You are so thorough & so helpful! I've got to find time to start following your posts more often. Thanks so much for sharing.
Hi Jeremy! Thanks for always sharing your wealth of information!:)..Your tutorials are so easy to understand as I have used them many times in the past. Here I go to feedburner widget!......
Jeremy, I did this quite some time ago for my outside AR blog but want to do it for my outside blog and could not remember how I did it. Thanks for the refresher course.
Jeremy - I like how ActiveRain and its members provide so much information and well written tutorials on using the numerous features and widgets of ActiveRain. It all helps to make ActiveRain a destination site.
Jeremy: Looks like another great tool.. I book marked this one to come back and set up...
Good stuff, Jeremy. You do a great job with the tutorials and it worked like a charm.
Jeff
Jeremy- I agree with you- Feedburner is awesome!
Very cool! One thing for sure- if I decided to bite the bullet and do this, I would be forced to provide regular, interesting content. I'm thinking about this.... ;)
Feedburner is great and one of the widgets that every Realtor should have. This one is a must. We should always be striving to keep readership.
Thanks Jeremy...followed your instructions and it works. So easy, great tutorial.
Hmmm... yet another worthwhile post, I'll check into this later.
Patricia Aulson/Portsmouth NH Real Estate
Jeremy,
There is just soo much stuff and so little time to get it all. I am glad that I don't require much sleep. I adhere to the addage "Early to bed and early to rise".
Good info Jeremy!! I'll have to get right on this!!
Best, Dan
Thanks Jeremy...we have been having problems figuring this out. You made it understandable.
Aloha Jeremy,
Thanks I am going to give this a try, your the man.
Steve
Hi Jeremy;
I do appreciate your information, I am going to give it a try.
Jeremy- I like using feedburner. You can also set it up for other things like get clicky. I added it to our Activeblog yesterday. It was very simple to do. I have to fix the one on my AR blog, it lost its' html code somehow, need to redo that one. THis is a reminder for me to get that done this week:)
wow thanks I think I just added it to one of my Outside blogs. I was never, ever able to figure it out to get it on my RealTown blog (I no longer post there.) Back to my other AR outside blog.... then maybe my wordpress blog too...
Yeah!!! My second AR Outside blog now has Feedburner. How to's are so helpful.
Hey, where is your REBAR post?!! LOL I haven't gotten to mine either! My photos just aren't the best!
Jeremy: Thanks for sharing the juice. I love it... Very helpful... I'm all over it...
Rene'
Nice post. Trying to get it to come up properly in my Wordpress site- but I will get there!
Jermey,
Thanks for your help, I was struggling with this. You make it look easy.
Another bookmark, I'm oing to be busy. THANKS