Burn your RSS feed

Q: What is a RSS feed?
A: RSS = Real Simple Syndication. It is a format to publish content that updates on a regular basis.

Clear as mud? RSS essentially allows readers of blogs to get automated updates from their favorite blogs.

I use http://www.feedburner.com/ to expand the reach of my RSS feed. Yes it is yet another service tied into Google but it can potentially become a revenue stream by adding advertising to your RSS feeds. They recently added the ability to add Google Adsense advertising to your feeds. I have linked my Adsense account to my FeedBurner account and now my feeds include advertising. Very cool!

FeedBurner is bifurcated into two important tool sets that allow bloggers to expand the reach of their blog. FeedBurner also has tools that allow you to optimize and publicize your RSS feed. I'm using the FeedFlare optimization tool that inserts a footer at the bottom of my posts that allow my readers to email or share my posts.I am also using three of the FeedBurner publicize tools to expand the reach of my blogs. The Headline Animator allows me to create animated banner that loops through my five most recent posts. The Email Subscription tools allows visitors to my site to sign up to receive my posts in email. And Ping Shot notifies various feed reading services that I have posted an article.Of course FeedBurner includes lots of reporting both for feed subscriptions, blog visits and advertising statistics.

So far I have been very happy with FeedBurner.