The simplest way to earn more feeds subscribers

If you’ve got a blog for some time and the number shown for acual feeds’ subscribers from Feedburner is very low, I’ll here show you how to boost this up with a simple trick.

Be you on Blogger or Wordpress, your blog is provided in different feeds version like the RSS or the Atom format and add to this your Feedburner’s burnt feed. What gets you a small number shown through Feedburner is that it isn’t your Feedburner’s burnt feed version that is provided and used when people subscribe to your blog but the other ones provided by your blog thus reducing the actual true number of subscribers shown.

When somebody types in your blog’s URL in a Feed Reader like Google Reader or Bloglines, depending on the service one of those versions may be given and added. Here’s an example I’ve taken from my friend Kyu’s blog. He burns his feed through Feedburner but what he doesn’t know is that if someone subscribe through a service like Bloglines, it’s the two version of his blogs’ feed that are provided and not the Feedburner’s one!

subscribing through blogline :
subscribing through bloglines
Different available feeds’ version shown :
available feeds shown
unlike kyu’s separated version, my unified feed’s version from Feedburner provided :
unified feed for blogosquare

What I will show you is unifying all your feeds in a single one and providing only that one to your readers and their Feed Readers so that you can :
1. control the way the feed gets displayed within Feedburner’s dashboard.
2. manage and have a clear account of readers you’ve through feeds.
3. obtain more feed’s subscribers.

The trick will have you only changing some simple code in the header part of your blog. I’ll first start for those on Wordpress then below details the procedure for Blogger users.

For Wordpress users

From your current themes’ folder, open your header.php file. Locate these lines of code at the very beginning of your header.php :

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="<?php bloginfo('rss_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="<?php bloginfo('atom_url'); ?>" />

You should actually just search for a line beginning with the Link tag containing the rel=”alternate” argument. When you’ve found this, just replace the link/php code found inside the href argument with your Feedburner’s one. That is from


<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="link to burnt Feedburner feeds here" />

Replace all instances of the above, 3 in all most of the time to point to your Feedburner’s feeds link something in the form of http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedname.

That’s it! Save the header.php file and now check it through any Feed Reader. Try inputting your blog’s URL and look at the feed that is provided.

For blogger(new version) users

If you’re on Blogger, first get to your blog and do a View Page Source(in Firefox) by right-clicking anywhere on your blog and choosing it from the menu. Copy these lines, everything from the meta tag to the link tag, in all 7 lines of code and paste it in Notepad or somewhere else where we could use it afterwards :


<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='true' name='MSSmartTagsPreventParsing'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom xml" title="Squarelab - Atom" href="http://blogosquare.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss xml" title="Squarelab - RSS" href="http://blogosquare.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom xml" title="Squarelab - Atom" href="http://www.blogger.com/feeds/33723874/posts/default" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd xml" title="RSD" href="http://www2.blogger.com/rsd.g?blogID=33723874" />

Now login to your Blogger’s account and go to your Template tab. Make sure you’re using the new template system(with Widget and all things). Choose the Edit HTML subtab and locate this line of code just below the head tag :

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

before adding code

Delete it and replace it with the above code I’ve made you copied from your blog’s header’s page source. Now get to the links tag portion, put your Feedburner’s RSS link in the href argument thus pointing to your Feedburners feed. See below where I’ve replaced the default link with my feedburners feed :


<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom xml" title="Squarelab - Atom" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/squarerss" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss xml" title="Squarelab - RSS" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/squarerss" />
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom xml" title="Squarelab - Atom" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/squarerss" />

after adding the code

Click Save Template down below to save the changes. Now try putting your blog’s URL into a Feed Reader and the ONLY feed’s link that is fetched is the one from Feedburner. Make sure though that you remove the appropriate line of code from your Blogger template that shows the Subscribe to Feeds in the lower part of your blog or just point this to the the Feedburner’s version.

unified feeds in blogger :

That’s it. Now you’re providing your readers and their feed readers with only one version of your blog’s feed : the one burnt from Feedburner. Just stand by and watch your feed subscribers increase.

related external reading material

How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds with Internet Explorer 7
To reply to Leo and Kyu’s intriguing threads, here’s the true way to get feedburner subscriber stats without sending a single one of your visitors to feedburner.

tips

ehm, thanks for using me blog as an example
but
hey
ages since i have changed that…
you know,
i didnt change the code, simply redirected the feed address itself to
feedburner. if you go to http://kyusphere.moris.org/feed you would reach my feedburner feed…..
anyway
cool
the jutsu i told you is still under development though.

kyu @ April 7, 2007,5:44 pm(#)

Happy Easter blogger Hans-kun!

waz @ April 7, 2007,9:40 pm(#)

Hans, your popunders actually does pop ABOVE, try deactivating your blocker youll see…

And as i re read your post i understood what you meant but hey, the two you see are the actual same thing. if you click on both youll go to feedburner. so no major differences since 1) i will control the rendering through cpanel @ feedburner, plus
I will have the unified count, since all are registered to the same feedburner.

kyu @ April 8, 2007,10:31 am(#)

hello cuza i’ve a big problem the domain .co.nr is not working, what should i do???

comradejv @ April 8, 2007,4:09 pm(#)

@ kyu

baka, I thought that when I would take your own blog as e.g you would understand. The Feed Reader take the 3 versions as different else why do you think there are such plugins are the feed redirect stuffs?

There was a report at Feedburner talking about the above issue…. I haven’t bookmarked it else I would have given you some references

Hans @ April 9, 2007,10:46 am(#)

@ comradejv:

I’ll be phoning you….. keep in touch just get that fucky mobile number permanent once for all lol… I don’t know what num you’re using!

Hans @ April 9, 2007,10:49 am(#)

Hans, anata wa baka desu dattebayo, what am telling you is that I HAVE Tried reading them all on bloglines and the like, the thing is that the all 3 render the esact same feedburner version.

=> one step further from your screenshot theres no difference between the 3!
Therefore it doesnt matter at all which one they chose as all will render the same thing, and are counted together. the only difference it would make is to show only one feed (Aesthetic change only i mean)

not that i dont like it, but not before i get my pc
and as it makes no technical difference im not in a hurry.
Enfin…..
ehm,
nevermind,
forget it…
:s

kyu @ April 9, 2007,11:56 am(#)

@ Hans Kyu is right, the url might be showing atom/rss but just try to register (Or even preview them on bloglines) to any of them and you will see. The little blogsignature is the proof that its the feedburner version.

lol we are also subscribed to our own feed using services like netvibes, bloglines, live bookmarks etc… its not narcissism, just a way to thoroughly understand how the viewers see it. kyu told me to do that ever since i joined him, so we would know what the feed lurkers experience…

and Roflmao @

so that you can [...] 3. obtain more feed’s subscribers.

Would not mind you explaining with what logic you worked this one out

Leo @ April 10, 2007,11:58 am(#)

@ leo:

just read the numerous instances on Feedburner’s blog where they just talk about redirecting your feed lol…infact I’m sure every latest post figure something on this issue, check this recent one.

If visitors subscribe through Feedburner’s feed, you’ll be seeing a logical increase since they aren’t using your other feed/s where subscribers from the latter is not tracked by Feedburner

Hans @ April 10, 2007,11:18 pm(#)

sorry man, you lost me there. i think there might be something i am missing because from your description i would tend to understand the readers of the other feeds wouldnt be counted in the feedburne account. thats what you meant?

if yes then am even more confused, because as i said, we are registered to all our feeds and looking at the figures on the control panel am almost sure we are counted! or am i really missing an important fact? please correct me if its so.

thanks

leo @ April 11, 2007,12:20 am(#)

@ leo

here’s another article on this subject… please do read information on the Feed redirection plugins

as I said some service could be using your Feedburner’s feed instead of your rss/atom ones but with the increasing number of services that actually fetch and provide feed integration : that was a sure way to ALWAYS get your feedburner’s feed fetched for ANY service…

Hans @ April 12, 2007,11:49 am(#)

do read here also, how internet explorer treats your feeds and why you should be getting this changed into your header.php

man, should I continue to scour the blogosphere for more articles on this or is this enough to bring some light on the subject?

Hans @ April 12, 2007,12:10 pm(#)

hoho @ hans, NOW i see what was wrong. Bakadesuka, in that post you NEVER mentioned feed redir., else i would have told you we ARE already using using something similar, thats why we are counted on most readers anyway!

from the facts in the previous article you posted, i deduced it uses the