Feedburner

So, I'm sure this post will be beyond boring for experienced bloggers, but I think that those new to blogging could be interested in learning about Feedburner. Feedburner is a tool to support analyzing how your blog (and/or podcast) is used through RSS.

I know that Feedburner provides several uses, but the one that I mainly use it for is traffic analysis. There is nothing that I love more than seeing how many people subscribe to my blog and their general geographic locations. For example, today I was elated to see that I have a subscriber from Japan! Feedburner claims to be able to help you get ad money for your blog, as well, but this is of no interest to me. (Have I ever told you how much I hate the word "monetization?")

My basic problem was this: I could analyze http traffic to my blog itself using Google Analytics, but what about people who read my blog via RSS? I know that I rarely visit my friends' blog sites; I read everything through my Google Reader. These would not register as hits to Google Analytics. Feedburner allows me to track this traffic as well.

It was very easy to set up. I just went to feedburner.com, entered the URL for my RSS feed, and was given my new Feedburner URL. I went to my blogger control panel, told it to redirect my RSS hits to my new Feedburner URL, and I was done. Now, I can log into Feedburner whenever I was and get real-time usage data.

Again, forgive me if this is old news to you. If you are a blogger or podcaster and have not tried Feedburner, I highly recommend it.