Feedburner Feed: How and why to burn a feed

What are feeds? I see “RSS”, “XML”, and “Atom” out there, but I don’t know how I might use these links when I find them.

• Feeds are a way for websites large and small to distribute their content well beyond just visitors using browsers.

• Feeds permit subscription to regular updates, delivered automatically via a web portal, news reader, or in some cases good old email.

• Feeds also make it possible for site content to be packaged into “widgets,” “gadgets,” mobile devices, and other bite-sized technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major news/sports/weather headlines just about anywhere.

How can I publish my own feeds?

FeedBurner’s services allow publishers who already have a feed to improve their understanding of and relationship with their audience. Once you have a working feed, run it through FeedBurner and realize a whole new set of benefits.

FeedBurner also offers our Email Subscription service, which uses your feed to send an update once each day that you make new post(s) to your blog. If you want to offer a link to subscribe to these email updates to your readers, visit and activate the Email Subscriptions service on the Publicize tab for your feed. Then, copy the “Subscription Link” code we offer into your blog as a “Text” widget under Presentation > Widgets in the WordPress Dashboard for your site.

(Feedburner.com)

WordPress comes with basic RSS abilities. If you are using a StudioPress template (you will if I have set up your site), then you will have an RSS already installed on your site.

Why would you want to set up an account with Feedburner if WordPress already has RSS installed?

• The number one reason you want to sign up with feed burner is that you can track what your subscribers are reading on your site.  This way you can write more of what people are interested in reading.

• Feedburner also has an option where you can add links to the posts people are receiving in their RSS readers. These links will allow your reader to forward your content to sites like StumbleUpon, post it on their Facebook page, e-mail it to another person, and so on.

• Please see the video below for complete instructions and handy hints on how to set up your Feedburner account and burn a feed for your site.