Feeds: Automatic Tweets with Feedburner

As bloggers we put a lot of time and effort into our blogs. There's nothing worse than putting in the work, then not having anyone view it. If you want readers, you've got to publicize your work. In recent years Twitter has become an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with readers and growing a following. It's a place to socialize, publicize and sometimes just have a little fun sharing interesting things in 140 characters or less. Twitter is a vital tool in today's blogging world and if you're not using it you should be.

Publicize on Twitter with Feedburner
Feeds are an excellent way to provide content to a large number of people in an accessible format. Feedburner under the banner of Google adds several feed customizations not in the standard blog feed. Among other things, Tweets to publicize all of your new content are a key feature. Setup is easy and the reach powerful, but first your blog should be setup with Feedburner.

Blogger Feeds: The Basics

Feeds are a useful and important tool in building a great looking website with Blogger. Starting out most know very little about or how to use their feeds. A little knowledge and understanding of how Blogger feeds work opens up new design opportunities to create an attractive and accessible site for your readers. In this article I cover the basics on how to configure your Blogger feeds and the URLs needed to access them.

Configure Your Feed
Let's start by logging into the Blogger setup and going to Settings->Site Feed. In Basic Mode there are just three options to setup each with a lengthy explanation. The Allow Blog Feeds option is the key setting for most. Full is a safe choice since it allows access to entire posts, but if you depend on your blog for revenue you'll want to include ads in the feed. Limiting site feeds to a snippet with either Jump Break or Short gives feed readers a little tease to entice them to visit your site for the entire post. Jump Break works if you include that feature in your posts and gives great control over what is visible in feeds, while short is automatic. Barring unusual circumstances the None option is not recommended.

Feeds: Connect with your Visitors

Feeds are an integral component of building a successful blog. They are a convenient way for readers to stay informed of  new content without having to visit each day. A subscriber simply loads up their preferred news reader to browse what interests them including your blog. Providing this service helps you stay engaged after an initial visit without asking a visitor to register or give out personal information. It's easy for the reader and opens the door for repeat visits.

What is a Feed?
Feeds are a specific portion of blog or website content made available to readers without requiring they load the entire website. These feeds primarily include articles or post content either in the form of links or summaries. Combined with news aggregators a reader can view information from several sources at once, then visit sites with relevant information. Feeds are an excellent way for browsers to keep up with many websites and blogs at once, including yours.