Blogging to Fame!

If you want to track your blog/site but find Google Analytics scary and do not want to get into all that Statistical based Web Analytics, a few days ago FeedBurner came up with Site Stats option, which is very easy to use and would tell you

1.The number of unique visitors to your site and Page views

2. Detailed 'by visitor' statistics

3.Traffic source through which they came including search query referrals and site link referrals

4.Where they outgoing link which they clicked to go elsewhere.

Dummies Guide to Use Site Stats

Step 1: Site stats is very easy to install. All you need to do is log in to your account and go to Analyze Tab. You will find a teaser, click on it.


Step 2: This window will appear and you will see an option to add the site stats to track visitors, page views, referrers, searches, outgoing links and various other stuff.
Tick the check box and click the save button.

Step 3: You will find these two new lines appearing where you can enter your tim ye zone andou need to chose your blogging platform. After which you will receive a JavaScript which you will have to paste in your template and how is well explained in the window that will appear.

Now you are full equipped with to view your data, and your side bar will have all the options to check which are the basics of all traffic statistics.

Well now as easy as it was, it also gives you live statistics, which is not available with Google Analytics. It also provides recent visitor details and where they came from.
It is great to find your feed stats and your blog stats at one place.

This service is a part of Blogbeat, which was acquired by FeedBurner last summer. There is one short coming with this service, and that is it does not exclude your own visits, and because it is a simple and sweet service it also does not provide the length of visit, and various other in-depth analysis that Google Analysis does.


FeedBurner also provide this with the script. It encourages your visitors to Digg you, at Netscape and use various to make you popular.vote you Read the post 11 ways to increase blog traffic using FeedBurner to find more ways using FeedBurner to help you.

In all, have fun with this useful little service along with the very important site stats, thanks to FeedBurner.

Till then Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam.

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Technorati Tags:- Business Blogging,Web Anallytics,FeedBurner

Labels: Blog Traffic, RSS/Feeds, Web Analytics

In the post Analytics for Better Optimization I told you that you can use Feedburner is a free service which also offers Feed Analytics, where you can track your traffic and other useful stuff. It would not create a feed from you from a scratch but would modify it and add it own services with it. One important point that I missed to mention was you can even use it to increase traffic to your blog, apart from just keeping an eye on it.

After you start using Feedburner you will yourself find the difference. People have almost doubled their traffic. Mr. Gary of Phoenix Realm SEO increased his traffic from 650 unique visitors per day to 1000+ unique visitors per day with doubling his RSS feed subscribers.

So now lets get to optimizing and publicizing your RSS feed to increase your Blog traffic.

Here are 11 easy and most useful ways of doing it.

1. Make you feed compatible- Some people or platforms have older version of RSS or Atom feed enabled, users of Blogger like me will be aware of this, where RSS is used more often. Don’t panic. Make your feed compatible with all feed subscription services using SmartFeed. Go to the optimize tab in FeedBurner, you’ll find a tool known as SmartFeed that will ensure maximum compatibility, and will convert it to any version the end user’s tool is asking for.

2. Explain what RSS feed is- Though it would sound odd but even today only a percentage of people who surf net know what RSS feed is, and how to use it. So, when new people click on your feed, without having one single idea about it, will know how to use it. Believe me a raw XML file is not very appealing to look at, if you are not a programming geek that is. FeedBurner knows that. All you need to do is to link the FeedBurner version of your feed rather than default. Use Browser Friendly option under Optimize tab to do it. You can even choose one of the different languages it provides and it is quite self explanatory.

3. What if your audience sends you more traffic- Nothing better than that I would say. Get your visitors spread a word about you using FeedFlare. Within the optimize tab, you will find this option. It will help you to create a community of your own around your content, and you’ll not have to touch a single line of code. Using it you will be able to provide your subscribers a way to act on your content. Now they will be able to Digg it, Del.icio.us it, email it and number of other things. Go on start spreading your content.

4.Notify all RSS and Blog tracking automatically with PingShot- Under Publicize tab, you’ll find the PingShot Service, which will save your time by automating the process and will ping all the top blog notification sites. This will be very helpful if your blog platform won’t let you to customize what services to get pinged.

5. Display your Headlines on other parts of your blog or other sites- Under Publicize tab you will find yet another cool feature, with the name of Buzz Boost. This will show part of your feed content on other parts of your site by posting a little JavaScript. This will be very useful if your blog is in a sub-directory of your site, and you want to put headlines on your Home page.

6. Catch the attention with your Headline Animator-This can again be found under Publicize tab. It is a Little Hypnotic button and it rotates headline which could be placed on your site or the forums you often visit. Clicking on the Headline will take you to the post. Something like this.



7. Get the RSS buttons for the sites of your choice- Chicklet Chooser under Publicize Tab is the way to do it. Provide your readers Feeds their way. You can find yours in my sidebar and subscribe for this blog’s feeds and be on the way of Blogging to Fame.

8. Feed Analytics- Though I already dedicated the last post about it but as I am talking about FeedBurner it would be hard to miss this point. Analyze your daily subscribers and daily click-through. This would help you know the time of the maximum visits of your audience to your blog and you can post accordingly.

9. Brand yourself through your feeds- Use Feed Image Burner under Optimize tab for this. Branding is so very important now a days and it is indeed fruitful to build your brand through your feeds. Include a smaller version of your logo, or even a special version just for your feed.

10. Include Media RSS Information for Yahoo Podcasts- Podcasting is the in thing today, and ofcourse if you are providing feeds for it you need to convert them to 2.0 instead, in order for the SmartCast option to work instead of the SmartFeed we talked before about. FeedBurner wi;; remind you which to pick.

11. Provide Summaries of your feed so that your subscribers visit your site to read more- Providing either full-feeds or a summary is totally upon your discretion. Providing just a summary sure will drive subscribers to your site to read the rest. You would ask that they may not- leave a teaser at the end of this summary so that they are bound to come to get the whole story and yes the first 200 words of your posts should be hypnotizing enough to drive them curious.

FeedBurner has lot more options, so go sign-up and explore them to bring traffic to your Blog.

Till then Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam.

Related Posts-
Optimize your blogging and blog for more traffic and profit
Give the power of RSS to your Blog

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Technorati Tags:- Web Analytics,Blog Traffic,Blogging,Better Blogging, Feed Optimization, Blog Optimization,FeedBurner

Labels: Blog Traffic, Blogging Fame, RSS/Feeds, Web Analytics

As we already talked about what is RSS in the last post, and we already know that RSS can be of help in increasing our popularity, most people think just blasting out RSS feeds from their blogs notifying readers for any(and all) new posts will do the trick. This post will guide you to unleash the power of RSS and exploit the technology to extremes.

What RSS helps us with most obviously are the following-

• Greater Visibility- both Search Engine and Otherwise
• Incoming Links- Everybody wants those
• A great way to maintain fan following- AHA!
• And last but not the least it will provide you with industry/niche latest updates and information before a blink of your eyes so that you can keep your blog up to date.

RSS gives you more visibility, we all know that. It also gives you what every site owner loves to have, i.e., Incoming links. If you write articles which are very appealing to your visitors, a lot of them will subscribe your RSS feed and display it on their own site, what do you get in return - incoming links. Syndication should be such that people can use your articles in their site, linking back to you.

Incoming Links with relevant anchor text can prove to be a boon for your Search Engine Optimization. For this you just need to name the feed right. The title of your RSS feed is equally important as naming of your blog, but the difference here is that your Blog’s title is read by the humans and also machines, whereas, RSS feeds are interpreted by machines or programs. A blog’s title should be attractive and catchy, where as a feed’s title should focus on the keywords it uses.

Submitting your RSS feed to major RSS search engines and directories is one of the best online marketing strategies you can use, as it allows people to find you through the very gateways used by others to search for the content they are looking for. You can search for these directories through search engines themselves like Syndic8.com

To get through Yahoo or MSN search engine, use the backdoor entry, the much faster and easier way. Login your own yahoo or MSN account and Add your feed to MyYahoo! or MyMSN personalized page. That’s it, you are done. Your RSS feed will soon be listed in the Yahoo!’s or MSN’s Directory with the pages your feed links to from your blog.

Build your feed category wise. Depending on the blog software which you use, a number of options might be available(especially for those using blogging engines installed on their own servers). It’s wise to provide with the specific information your audience is looking for. Options can mean more people subscribing and a higher level of interest from those who receive the feeds. The specifics of how(and if) your blog engine can support these enhanced syndication features will vary based on the software you use. The options for you to try could be-

1. Category Feeds- People who may want to know about Search Engine Optimization may not want to know about blogging, or people who might want to know about latest films may not like to know about the latest ipods in the market. As almost every blog covers wide variety of topics, in a niche, and a reader may want to know only about a few of them.
2. Calendar Feeds- subscribers will want to know about the events a resort conducts date wise. Offering a dedicated calendar feed for the purpose will do the trick.
3. Author Feeds- Your blog may have more than one contributor. Offering specific feeds for the author can create a different fan-following for both. Nonetheless, both would be traffic for the same blog.
4. Comment Feed- Now-a-days readers want to keep a track of the conversation going on, at their favorite blog, and want to get notified for every new input. The more powerful blog systems are now offering comments feed as an option.

One of the very basic profit you can acquire from RSS is that you can keep your blog updated and fresh by displaying relevant RSS feeds there. Apart from keeping your blog alive this would also help you cover the latest developments in your niche and technology news of the market. You can subscribe to lets say 10 blogs and display important feeds from them. Providing a different feed for this section will help your users to get necessary information from subscribing your blog itself, and he wont have to subscribe the 10 blogs where you are picking feed from.

Think beyond directories and how in real world you can exploit RSS for the benefit of your business.

To your success,
Divya Uttam.
Happy Blogging.

Related Posts:-
RSS- What and What Not?
5S of B.S.- OOPs!!! I meant Blogging Success.
Substancial Blogging- 5S' of Blogging Success-Cont...
What you can learn from T.V Soaps while Blogging?
7 Truths for increasing your blog's social likebility!

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Technorati Tag:- RSS

Labels: 5S' of Blogging Success, Blogging Tip/Tricks, RSS/Feeds

The definition of RSS can very easily be found on net, but as we will be talking about it, it is mandatory to describe it here.

“RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a simple XML-based system that allows you to subscribe to your favorite websites. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another website.

Programs known as feed readers or aggregators can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that they find. It is common to find web feeds on major websites and many smaller ones. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom.

RSS-aware programs are available for various operating systems. Client-side readers and aggregators are typically constructed as standalone programs or extensions to existing programs such as web browsers and Email readers. Many browsers have integrated support for RSS feeds. There also are other applications that can convert an RSS feed into several usenet articles, viewable through the major newsreader software such as Mozilla Thunderbird.

Web-based feed readers and news aggregators such as YourLiveWire require no software installation and make the user's "feeds" available on any computer with Web access. Some aggregators combine existing web feeds into new feeds, e.g., taking all football related items from several sports feeds and providing a new football feed. There are also search engines for content published via web feeds like Feedster or Blogdigger.

On Web pages, web feeds (RSS or Atom) are typically linked with the word "Subscribe", an orange rectangle, , or with the letters or . Many news aggregators such as My Yahoo! publish subscription buttons for use on Web pages to simplify the process of adding news feeds.”

This is not very orignal post but a defination can never be one. In my next post I will be taking up the advantages of using RSS with blogging, which will prove to be very profitable step towards blogging to fame.

Divya Uttam,
Happy Blogging.


Related Posts:-
5S of B.S.- OOPs!!! I meant Blogging Success.
Substancial Blogging- 5S' of Blogging Success-Cont...
What you can learn from T.V Soaps while Blogging?
7 Truths for increasing your blog's social likebility!


Technorati Tag:- RSS

Labels: 5S' of Blogging Success, RSS/Feeds