You may be asking yourself…”What should I know about Feedburner?”
You are asking yourself this because you don’t want to ask anyone else. Everyone else seems to know already what it is and how to use it and you don’t want to look like a dummy head.
Admit it… come on…
Okay, you don’t got to admit anything because I am going to tell you what Feedburner is, it’s benefits, and how to use it for your blog effectively.
Google bought Feedburner. There are rules on the internet and the biggest rule is…
- When Google buys something, start using it.
Feedburner deals with feeds. You need to know what a feed is for this, there are three levels of knowledge when it comes to feeds.
1) What the #@$& is a feed?
- If you do not understand the concept of feeds (or you just like great videos) watch this video it tells you in one of the simplest and most entertaining ways ever what feeds are about in about 2 minutes.
2) I totally know what feeds are… sorta.
- Do you just stay quiet and nod alot when people are talking about feeds? Is your biggest fear is that someone will ask you specific questions about feeds in public? Read this little diddy about feeds.
3) I know what feeds are and I use a feed reader.
- Well aren’t you fancy, Mr. Smarty pants?
Okay, that was fun but…
What the hell is Feedburner?
Feedburner is like a post office for feeds…
Your local post office delivers mail and receives mail. Feedburner does that with feeds, it helps you deliver (publish) feeds and receive (read) feeds easier. Imagine a world where you had to go to five different post offices to receive your mail. One post office for letters, another post office for post cards, and yet another post office for boxes.
That would be stupid. But the feed world is somewhat like the dumb scenario I just described above.
People use different methods to read (or subscribe) to feeds, people also use different methods to publish them. This sucks if you like simple.
Arrghh.
Wouldn’t it be sweet if there was just one way to do feeds and only have to learn this crap once and everyone could just get along?
Feedburner is that one way.
People should be able to subscribe to your feed, even if they do not know what RSS or Atom is, or do not yet even use feeds and are new to the whole game. Feedburner makes your feed friendly for both people and search engines. It also allows you to offer your feed via email. With Feedburner, you get to have one “version” of a feed that is compatible with all the different ways of reading a feed. It also provides simple options for users, which simplifies things for your potential readers (subscribers).
If you have a blog, then you are already publishing a feed (whether you know it or not). Since you have a feed, why not make it useful and take advantage of the benefits of Feedburner?
The benefits of using Feedburner for your blog
1) Feedburner makes your feed universal and simple to use, even to people who are unfamiliar with feeds.
2) Feedburner allows you to know how many total people are subscribed to your feed, no matter what services or manner those people are using to access it. This is good for a few reasons.
3) Feedburner gives you the ability to optimize your feed to be better understood by people and search engines.
4) Feedburner was bought by Google therefore it likely has an enormous chunk of the future of feed advertising.
5) Feedburner has a whole bunch of neato stuff that lets you make your feed cool and useful.
Check out the Feedburner feed for SEOish, see how there is a title and choices of how to subscribe? Good stuff.
Stay tuned… Tomorrow I will be posting a detailed, step by step description of how to set up Feedburner on your blog and maximize it’s potential.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
O.K. this is cool. Even though I actually did already totally know what feedburner is kinda. However, I’m not too clear on what you do differently to SEO a blog rather than a static html page/site. Other than submit to feedburner that is.
Tomorrow I will get into some of the neat stuff you can do, and how to do it.
I like the chicklet the best and the multiple ways users can subscribe (via email, reader, etc.)
Haven’t tried their feedvertising services, but have heard pretty good things, hopefully you cover that aspect of their service tomorrow, since it’s really the only one I don’t know enough about.
eCopt, I won’t be (other than mentioning it) They haven’t approved me yet, or gotten back to me on an email I sent them. So I do not know much about it yet.
If they see this and respond to my email, then I will review it.
btw- did you send out an email about SEOmoz to me?
“btw- did you send out an email about SEOmoz to me?” – yes
I responded to it already, your input and feedback would be much appreciated.
Nice write up, Pat. I dig the video (no not Digg) and I’m planning on testing it out at work. The next lucky client that asks me about feeds gets a link to that video and an out-of-office response to my email. : )