RSS Feeds & Analytics – Getting Set Up

by Caroline Middlebrook

What is RSS?

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to allow your blog’s visitors to automatically receive your posts, by their chosen method, without having to manually go to your website day-in, day-out to check for any new updates. This is a great tool for someone who follows multiple blogs as it means that they can use the RSS reader to view all the blogs in just the one place.

Each blog publishes a unique URL which is the RSS feed and this is what your visitors will need to subscribe to your blog using RSS. The good news is that all of the blog platforms including WordPress all have the RSS technology built in so there is very little for you to do. In fact, if you have chosen your theme well then the chances are that you have nothing to do at all.

What you should look for is that the RSS icon is prominently displayed in the top part of your blog theme. If the reader has to scroll to see it, pick another one. Make sure the icon is fairly large and prominent. Basically, you want to ensure that your reader’s eye is drawn towards it. If it is hidden away then it won’t get used.

Choosing Full or Partial Feeds

RSS has a feature that allows just a snippet of your post to be published to your RSS feed and if a reader wants to read the full entry then they must click through to your website to continue reading. By default, WordPress is setup to publish full feeds which means that your entire post is published to the feed. To check what setting you are on, from your WordPress Dashboard click on ‘Settings’ and then ‘Reading’.

There are pros and cons to both full and partial feeds. If you allow the RSS feed to publish the whole post, your reader won’t need to visit your web page any more – they are able to access all your posts straight from their feed reader. You may find this doesn’t suit you as it does mean that your readers aren’t going to see the ads on your site. However, this has now changed since Google set up a way of allowing ads to be embedded into your feed directly.

The thing to realise about RSS users, is that these people understand the internet. They know all about RSS, have already chosen their RSS reader and they chose to subscribe to your feed as they want to read what you have to say. There is much less chance of these people clicking on an ad than someone who came to your website via a search engine. These are people who are hungry for information, that is why they use RSS in the first place.

The use of an RSS reader will allow them to view all of their chosen blogs speedily and saves them from the need to navigate round a whole horde of websites. The downside, then, of only sending a partial feed to your reader, is that if these people are forced to then have to click and follow through to your website, they may simply not bother, and many may even unsubscribe. This then means that your posts do not get viewed.

I would recommend that, if you want to grow a social blog and you are keen to build up a loyal audience who will read everything you write, you will need to make it a full feed. But if you are looking to create a commercial blog that is monetized heavily, and that you are not so concerned about readership, you can do a partial feed.

However, the greatest revenue from your blog will not just be from on-page ads! Once you learn how to use your blog to initiate bigger revenue streams, then it won’t matter so much if your readers view your posts via their RSS reader or on your web page. Therefore, in the majority of cases, a full feed is recommended.

Utilizing a Feedburner

If you use the WordPress theme unchanged then there is nothing you need to do in order to allow people to subscribe to your feed but you have no way of knowing how many people have subscribed. If you care about your subscriber number and want to be able to track it then the Feedburner service is for you.

The Feedburner service is completely free and is run by Google. It is also incredibly easy to set up. All you need to do once you are signed up, is give your original blog’s URL to Feedburner and it will create a new Feedburner URL for you to use. You can then edit your WordPress theme to use the Feedburner URL instead.

Google Analytics – What is it?

Google Analytics is a very nice bit of software that will allow you to follow all manner of statistics about your website. For example, the amount of traffic you’ve had, which keywords have been used to reach you, any links that point to your site, your visitors’ location and much more. It is incredibly good software and is totally free!

You will have to insert a website profile for your blog once you are all signed up. This just requires you to put in the URL of your blog and possibly your time zone, if you wish, then it will provide you with some code that you should display on your pages. Just click and copy the code on to the clipboard.

You can manually add the code on to your WordPress blog but this will involve editing your theme files, but if you change themes, you will then have to do it again. Alternatively, I would recommend Semiologic as this will manage your Analytics for you. The download page shows complete instructions about how to use the plugin, so it need not be repeated here.

About the Author:
Caroline Middlebrook has written a popular blog since 2007 which earns a 4-figure monthly income. She demonstrates how to make money blogging and gives away free downloads of her free guides & courses.
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