Turns out that giving your FeedBurner’s feed extra shine an flare is very easy. It took me about 15 minutes to transform my feeds landing page as well as e-mail subscription into a branded feed and a branded subscription.
Here is what you need to do. Prepare two images to be used in your FeedBurner account both of the images have to be hosted on your server. Here are the images that I have used:
Larger (248×65 pixels)
Smaller (200×52 pixels)
Larger Image- I have used this to place it in header of the feed. FeedBurner recommends that this image is not wider or taller than 140 pixels, but you have some freedom when it comes to this one.
Smaller Image- This one had to be no wider or taller than 200 pixel. No freedom here. If yor image is larger FeedBurner will not accept it.
Upload the larger image somewhere onto your server. Sign in to your FeedBurner account locate the feed you will be working with the go to Optimize>Feed Image Burner. Provide the url of the image and other information:
Click activate or save if already activated. That’s it, now your FeedBurner’s feed will look something like this.
Email Options and Branding
Go back to your FeedBurner account, under tab “Publicize” locate “Email Subscriptions”. Notice that there are few new things you can while customizing your e-mail subscriptions:
You can customize the e-mail the subscriber receives upon subscribing to your feed. Just pay attention when customizing this e-mail not to delete the “confirmation url”- that wouldn’t be good. Also, there is an delivery option that you can tell FeedBurner when to send out the e-mails. I am still trying to figure out the best time of day to have my subscribers updated. I just wish a subscriber was asked the time zone so you can manage this part accordingly and more efficiently. It can be very beneficial to have this.
Of course last but definitely not least is the smaller image you have prepared. Click “Email Branding” and fill out the url for your smaller image:
Here you can also modify the fonts winch will be used in your e-mail. If your image is correct width and hight you will see a preview of e-mails that will be sent to your subscribers. Click save- now your subscribers will be receiving a branded e-mail every time you update your blog:
I think the preview does not do justice and of course the other way to find out how your e-mails will look like is to subscribe your own e-mail.
Final Note: You can create just one 200x200px image to use in both, feed as well as e-mail.
Great tips for FeedBurner. One thing I'd add for e-mail generated via your RSS.
The e-mail service provider, AWeber, enables you to do a similar thing to FeedBurner, but you can design the confirmation e-mail and all of the subsequent e-mails to be in your look and feel.
Great tips for FeedBurner. One thing I’d add for e-mail generated via your RSS.
The e-mail service provider, AWeber, enables you to do a similar thing to FeedBurner, but you can design the confirmation e-mail and all of the subsequent e-mails to be in your look and feel.
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for stopping by. I am sucribed to some blogs using AWeber. One thing that I like about FeedBurners e-mail subscription is that it sends an e-mail once a day with all the posts you made. I am not sure if you can do the same with the AWeber. So far from what I have seen AWeber sends out e-mails as soon as there is new post on your blog. AWeber is probably great for e-mail marketing via newsletters. I am avioding to subscribe to blogs that offer e-mail subscription via AWeber due to the amount of e-mails.
Aslo FeedBurner is free.
Hi Vlad –
> One thing that I like about FeedBurners e-mail subscription is that it sends an e-mail once a day with all the posts you made. I am not sure if you can do the same with the AWeber.
AWeber enables you to configure the frequency, so it can go out every post, every 3rd post, every 5th post or whatever.
Also, they have a couple dozen templates you can use and customize in AWeber's Feed Broadcaster (or just build the HTML from scratch).
Another thing I like a lot about AWeber, is that people can double opt-in via a form or by sending a blank e-mail to an address you can specify.
Thanks fo the points Shawn. I did not know many of these things, I will probably give AWever a shot.
How would you benefit from double opt-in? I am not sure I understand what double opt-in is. Is it thatou offer two different sing up methods?
> How would you benefit from double opt-in?
Anybody who wants to receive your updates has to request to be on your list and then confirm it.
So you get a quality subscriber and avoid the risk of people being added to your list without their permission.
OK I get it. That feature was availabel from FeedBurner as long as I can remember…. FeedBurner sends a confirmation e-mail to subscriber with a unique url to confirm the subscription. Also there is an option to back up all the e-mails, should something go wrong with FeedBurner.
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for stopping by. I am sucribed to some blogs using AWeber. One thing that I like about FeedBurners e-mail subscription is that it sends an e-mail once a day with all the posts you made. I am not sure if you can do the same with the AWeber. So far from what I have seen AWeber sends out e-mails as soon as there is new post on your blog. AWeber is probably great for e-mail marketing via newsletters. I am avioding to subscribe to blogs that offer e-mail subscription via AWeber due to the amount of e-mails.
Aslo FeedBurner is free.
Hi Vlad –
> One thing that I like about FeedBurners e-mail subscription is that it sends an e-mail once a day with all the posts you made. I am not sure if you can do the same with the AWeber.
AWeber enables you to configure the frequency, so it can go out every post, every 3rd post, every 5th post or whatever.
Also, they have a couple dozen templates you can use and customize in AWeber’s Feed Broadcaster (or just build the HTML from scratch).
Another thing I like a lot about AWeber, is that people can double opt-in via a form or by sending a blank e-mail to an address you can specify.
Thanks fo the points Shawn. I did not know many of these things, I will probably give AWever a shot.
How would you benefit from double opt-in? I am not sure I understand what double opt-in is. Is it thatou offer two different sing up methods?
> How would you benefit from double opt-in?
Anybody who wants to receive your updates has to request to be on your list and then confirm it.
So you get a quality subscriber and avoid the risk of people being added to your list without their permission.
OK I get it. That feature was availabel from FeedBurner as long as I can remember…. FeedBurner sends a confirmation e-mail to subscriber with a unique url to confirm the subscription. Also there is an option to back up all the e-mails, should something go wrong with FeedBurner.