Email Subscriptions

Google’s FeedBurner allows readers to subscribe to your blog and receive email notifications of new posts. All you need is a Google account to set it up.

1. Go to www.feedburner.com and log in with your Google account (or create one if you do not have one already).
    
2. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll see two options for adding feeds: “Looking for feeds you used to have at feedburner.com?” and “Burn a feed right this instant.” Under “Burn a feed right this instant,” paste the URL of your blog and click Next.
   
    
3. This should bring you to a page asking you to “Identify Feed Source.” One should be called “Your Blog Title >> Feed” while the other will be called “Your Blog Title >> Comments Feed.” Select the regular Feed, NOT the Comments Feed. Click Next.
    
4. On the next page, you can enter a title for your feed and a custom address, or you can choose to keep the defaults that FeedBurner chooses. When you’re done, click Next.
    
5. At the bottom of the next page, click “Skip directly to feed management” to go to your feed’s settings.
    
6. Click the Publicize tab at the top of the page, then click Email Subscriptions on the left side, then click the Activate button that will show up in the pink bar at the bottom of the page.
    
7. On the next page, FeedBurner gives you two ways to allow people to sign up for email updates: by embedding a form on your site or by linking to a form at FeedBurner.
    

   Embedding a form on your site

   1. Copy the form style code in the first code field under Subscription Management” (it will start with “<form style”).
   2. Go to your blog’s dashboard and select Appearance -> Widgets from the left side menu.
   3. Drag the bar that says Text from the Available Widgets box over to the widget area on the right side where you’d like it to appear.
   4. In the title field, give the widget a title like “Subscribe” or “Get Email Updates” that will show up on your site.
   5. Paste the form code in the larger body field and then click Save. Check your blog to make sure the form is showing up correctly.

    
   Linking to a form at FeedBurner

   1. If the form doesn’t show up properly or you’d just prefer a smaller widget, go to the smaller code field under “Preview Subscription Link…” on your feed’s Subscription Management page on FeedBurner. Copy the link code (it will start with “<a href”).
   2. Go to your blog’s dashboard and select Appearance -> Widgets from the left side menu.
   3. Drag the bar that says Text from the Available Widgets box over to the widget area on the right side where you’d like it to appear.
   4. You can enter a title in the widget field that will appear on your site, or you can leave it blank to save space.
   5. Paste the link code in the larger body field and then click Save. Check your blog to make sure the link is showing up correctly.