How to Burn Blogger RSS Feeds at Feedburner

In this post I shall show how to burn the RSS feed of your Blogger Blog at Feedburner. Moreover, I shall guide you through the processes of updating your blog settings to reflect the new feed and adding a RSS icon to the sidebar of your blog so your visitors can subscribe to your new RSS feed. Although redirecting your blog feeds through Feedburner is fairly straightforward, some tips will be included to simplify the process. This tutorial is suitable for all levels of technical know-how but is specifically aimed at readers new to blogging with Blogger.

There are many good reasons for burning your Blogger feeds using a free service like Feedburner. A few of the advantages are better feed presentation, detailed tracking statistics, and access to the large numbers of feed readers available. For a detailed discussion of the benefits of burning your Blogger blog feed at Feedburner, including an explanation of Blogger RSS feeds, please refer to my article Blogger RSS Feeds and Why You Should Burn Them at Feedburner.

How to Burn Your Blogger RSS Feed at Feedburner

Please follow the steps below to burn your post feed at Feedburner:

1. Go to Feedburner and click on the Get Started link.

2. Sign in to your Google Account if you are not already signed in. This will take you to your Feedburner Account page.

3. Enter the name of your blog in the Burn a feed right this instant box and click the Next button.

4. A message will be displayed that you have more than one feed and asking you to choose. Select the RSS radio button for the RSS feed and click Next.

5. Feedburner will now display the proposed Feed Title and Feed URL. Unless you have a reason to change these accept by selecting the Next button.

6. You will now see a message on the confirmation screen letting you know your feed has been burned. Select the Next button to set up Feedburner Statistics options.

7. Check the I want more! box to give you access to additional tracking statistics. Then click on the Next button.

8. Feedburner will now let you know that the burned feed you have just created has been updated successfully.

9. Click on the Feedburner Analyze Tab at the top of the page and you will be taken to the Analyze Feed Stats Dashboard. At this stage you will receive the message: Your feed is so new, we’re still playing with the bubble wrap. It can take a day or so before you will be able to see action on your feed.

10. Under the title of your blog's feed in this screen click on edit feed details. This will give you the new name and URL for your feed. Copy the full feed address into Notepad or similar. Care needs to be taken as you will need to copy this in two parts. The new feed URL should be similar to this:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/YourBlog

11. In a new window login to Blogger.com and navigate to the Settings --> Site Feeds section of your blog.

12. Click on the Advanced Mode to switch from Basic Mode.

13. Make sure that the Blog Posts Feed, Blog Comment Feed and the Per Post Comment Feed are all set to Full.

14. Paste the URL address of your new Feedburner feed (the URL address that you copied into Notepad previously) into the feed address box provided.

15. If you do not already have a copyright notice in the Post Feed Footer it is a good idea to enter one now. Something along the lines of:

should do just fine.

16. Click on Save.

17. Return to Feedburner and click on the Publicize tab.

18. Follow the friendly graphic link to chickletize your feed. This will provide you with the code to place an RSS icon on your blog with a link to your new burned Feedburner feed.

19. Choose the large orange icon entitled “Subscribe in a Reader” that we will be placing in the sidebar of your blog.

20. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Blogger from the “Use as a widget in” menu. (Alternatively you can copy the code right above this menu by right clicking the mouse and then selecting all from the menu followed by another right click with the mouse and the selection of copy.)

21. After selecting the Blogger option from the “Use as” menu you will be taken to the Add page element screen. Choose the title of the blog you want to add the widget to. You can name the widget if you want. Then click on the Add widget button.

22. Your widget will now appear on the Page Elements page. Drag and drop it to where you would like it to appear on your blog.

23. Save.

21a. If you chose to copy the code return to your blog and navigate to Layout --> Page Elements.

22a. In the sidebar (or one of the sidebars) select Add a Gadget and then HTML/Javascript from the menu. Paste the code into the Content box by right clicking the mouse and selecting paste (or by pressing Ctrl + V).

23a. Enter a title if you wish. Something like Subscribe for Free tends to work well because a lot of people think that subscription means there is a cost involved.

24a. Save your new widget.

25a. Use the drag and drop feature in the sidebar to position the widget in your desired location. Click on Save.

When you are done, click on View your Blog to see your new RSS icon in the sidebar. If you now click on the RSS icon you will see your new Feedburner post feed in action.

In this post I have shown you how to burn your Blogger Blogspot Feed at Feedburner, update your Blogger settings to take account of the new feed URL address and add a RSS icon link to your blog's sidebar which points to your Feedburner post feed.