Besides making it easier for readers to subscribe to your blog using RSS or email, using a Feedburner feed means you can analyse your subscribers e.g. number of subscribers, and which feed reader they use.
Trouble is unless you redirect all your blog feed to Feedburner you won’t get an accurate picture of the number of readers that subscribe to your blog using a feed reader (e.g. Google Reader, NetVibes or Bloglines) because some of your readers will be subscribing using your blog feed.
The great news is Edublogs supporters are able to redirect all their blog feed to Feedburner which means they know exactly how many of readers subscribe to their blog. It costs $25 per year to become an Edublogs supporter which gives you great extra features including Feedburner integration.
Setting up your Feedburner Feed
If you’ve already created your feedburner feed like I explained in Adding a RSS Feed From Feedburner To Your Blog and How To Add an Email Subscription to Your Blog you need to use this feedburner feed URL when redirecting your blog feed to feedburner.
Don’t create a new feed by clicking on the link “To get started, create a Feedburner feed for ……..” if you’ve already created a Feedburner feed.
Analyzing & Monitoring Your Feed
It will take 24 hours for Feedburner to display the changes to your subscriber numbers and don’t stress if suddenly your subscription numbers increase dramatically — remember it’s now showing all your subscribers.
You will notice slight fluctuations in daily number of readers subscribed because numbers are based on an approximation of how many times your feed has been requested in a 24-hour period plus some of your readers may use desktop RSS software that retrieve your feed less frequently.
Make sure you also subscribe to your blog using a feed reader; it’s really important– read why here! If you currently not using RSS to blogs using a feed reader — check out What is RSS and why you should use it? An introduction for newbies and watch RSS in Plain English.
If you’re interested in a more through analysis of your Feedburner statistics try out BlogPerfumes Feed analysis.
FINAL THOUGHT
Edublogs is on twitter; the Edublogs twitter account is being used to inform users of latest news and to make announcements! Since The Edublogger is an Edublogs supporter we can integrate the twitter account with The Edublogger so any updates to the twitter account are posted on The Edublogger– what are your thoughts?
If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider 
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8 responses so far ↓
1
Larry Ferlazzo
// Mar 13, 2008 at 1:34 am
Sue,
As always, another great post, Sue! Thanks!
Larry
2
Paul Hamilton
// Mar 13, 2008 at 5:08 am
Thanks for this helpful post. With your help, Feedburner is now working well with my blog. I appreciate the Feedburner info. When I compare it with what I get from Google Analytics, it seems that GA misses a goodly number of visits to the blog. Eg. A couple of days ago Feedburner indicated several visits from Barbados, but GA either completely missed these or told me they were from somewhere else. Can you shed any light on the difference? –Paul
3
blogwalker
// Apr 9, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Sue, apparently did not follow your directions (too much multi-tasking) because I just had a Tweet from Mr. Needleman letting me know that my feed was messed up. I went into to Feedburner and deleted the feed for Blogwalker. I also cleaned out the Options > Feedburner URL. But my Blogwalker feed is still “messed up.” What the best way to get my feed back up and running?
Gail
4
singaporeeducation
// Apr 11, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I look forward to a better RSS feed integration into Feedburner as a long-term tools for students, teachers and consultants. Hope there will be a toolbars for edublogs user in future. Thanks
5
woodchurchscience
// Apr 16, 2008 at 11:11 am
i wonder if you could tell me how you put your subscribe via feedburner box in your sidebar. i have it on my site set up as an extra page but it was laborious to set up. surely yours is a quicker way. could you give me step by step instructions? thanks.
6
woodchurchscience
// Apr 16, 2008 at 11:29 am
i’ve done it! and it wasn’t really that tricky…i just dropped the relevant form into a text widget and with a bit of massage it works a treat…sorry to bother you…(feel free to delete these two comments)…you can see the result on http://woodchurchscience.edublogs.org/
7
Sue Waters
// Apr 26, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Sorry guys it does look like I didn’t respond to your comments however for most of you I emailed you personally and walked you through the process that way. So am glad I was able to resolve the issues.
@singaporeeducation that is probably a question you need to ask James in the forum as that is his area.
@Woodchurchscience glad you got the feedburner RSS attached to your sidebar. Also loving all your new embeds on your site.
8
healthblog
// Jun 20, 2008 at 11:04 am
Do not know how to
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