In All Reality - I can’t be a rockstar…so I do this instead.

For most people, FeedBurner is old news.  Nearly anyone who has subscribed to an RSS feed from a major site has probably come into contact with a feed redistributed by FeedBurner, whether you’ve known it or not.  Heck, even I, a relative newcomer to this land of pingbacks, comments, and calibrated SEO measures has known of FeedBurner for quite sometime.  However, knowing it’s there and trying to use it are two different things, and I recently had a very pleasurable experience when I signed up for my first FeedBurner feed.  So, I thought I would share why I thought it was so nifty, and offer a few quick tips on how to easily get your WordPress site spitting out feeds enhanced with FeedBurner.

What Is FeedBurner?

I felt I should answer this first, before I dug into it a bit more.  Even knowing about FeedBurner beforehand didn’t really give me a clear indication of what FeedBurner actually does.  So, here’s the skinny:

• FeedBurner is, at a basic level,  a service that takes a single feed that you provide, and recompiles it into a “super feed” that is readable in all formats (RSS1, RSS2, Atom, etc)
• FeedBurner also modifies your feed output to include a number of custom features, such as animated images and links for social networking in each post (Share on Facebook, Digg It, etc)
• You are given a stats report, detailing who your subscribers are and what they are reading.
• Other options are available, like having FeedBurner notify indexing services when your feed has been updated, integrating AdSense

Why Is It So Awesome?

Lots of reasons.  The entire goal of having a blog (and the giant dispersal of information we know as the “Internet”) is to reach as many people as possible.  FeedBurner’s ability to take a single feed and tailor multiple XML formats for various readers means that you can hit a wider range of potential recurring readers.  Couple that with its custom modifications to include monetization (AdSense) and social networking links to improve your shareability, means that you have a much higher potential for making the most of your blog/podcast/rightwing ultra-conservative anarchist revolutionary feed.

Being a designer, I’m innately concerned with the presentation of whatever materials are before me.  With this in mind, the first thing I noticed was the superb usability FeedBurner brings to its services.  The homepage has a fair amount of information, but the reason you are most likely there is front and center and ready for easy use:

I was able to sign up for a free account, and convert my WordPress default feed to a FeedBurner super mutant feed in about a minute.   I then instantly had access to this wonderful workflow navigation:

Everything I need is right there, in an ordered format, with helpful hints and instructions under each tab.  That’s a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of web apps, which can easily become so cumbersome that they collapse under the usability issues of their own vast amount of features.  On top of that, I couldn’t help but notice the subtle humor and personality present throughout the site.  This is something I’ve come to expect (and enjoy) from most Google-owned services, which breaks the monotony of the business of business.  I found this starting page viewable immediately after creation of my first feed particularly…um…cute? :

It makes sense, it gives you some options, and it even makes you smile a little.  Perfect.

FeedBurner & WordPress

Ok, so now we’ve got this nifty hybridized feed that monetizes, optimizes, customizes and Simonizes…how do we get it into WordPress?  This part is really simple, thanks to Google/FeedBurner fully supporting the FeedSmith plugin for WordPress.  Basically, you follow the instructions on this page: Creating your WordPress feed (self-hosted WordPress).  The page details a 5-step process, but it can basically be summarized as:

1. Download FeedSmith, upload it to your plugins folder, and activate it.
2. Go to Settings > FeedSmith, and paste in the URL to your FeedBurner feed and hit the button…you’re done.

Easy.  There’s also a guide for using FeedBurner through WordPress.com, found here: Creating your WordPress feed (WordPress.com)

FeedBurner isn’t just another WordPress supporting service; it’s a standalone that you can use in any situation where a default feed can use some major optimization.  Try it out, recommend it to your friends, all hail Google.