Website Design Tips - Hypergurl

Google has acquired FeedBurner - The advantages of this for webmasters

The future of RSS feeds, seems to be still going strong with Google recently acquiring FeedBurner.

For those who don't know what FeedBurner is, it consists of free tools to help webmasters better manage their RSS subscription feeds. Not only does it help website publishers to promote and deliver their RSS feeds, it now helps them to monetize on this traffic as well, with Google allowing tools to implement Google Adsense to their feeds. This is where Google aquiring FeedBurner will be to the most advantage for those that own websites.

How can FeedBurner help you build your website traffic?

With or without the Googe acquisition, FeedBurner is and always was a popular way for webmasters to increase their website traffic. With a traffic rank of 414 on Alexa, there is no doubt to Feedburner's popularity. But what makes it so popular?

1. Reader and browser compatibility. Not every subscriber likes using XML feeds.

Anyone who publishes a blog also publishes a feed that allows their visitors to subscribe to their content. Implementing FeedBurner makes the process of subscription easier for your readers, as it gives them a choice of numerous RSS readers, instead of sending them straight to the XML feed. Not all browsers are RSS, XML or ATOM compatible. Therefore, if you were to link straight to your RSS or XML feed, some visitors (depending on their browser) may only see the raw code, which often causes confusion and doesn't result in any subscriptions or return visits to your blog.

2. FeedBurner makes it easier for website owners to package their blog content into widgets, gadgets, mobile devices, and other technologies that make it possible to display blogs, podcasts, and major headlines just about anywhere.

For example, shown below is a widget that other webmasters can add to their websites. What it does, is display any new blog posts we make here on 'Website Design Tips'. Encouraging other webmasters to display your wiget on their websites can help to increase your visitor traffic.

3. FeedBurner helps you keep track of visitor statistics including, number of blog subscribers, what reader they use, what posts they are clicking on etc. This is really useful in seeing what articles your readers are most interested in so you can further target those specific area's, which of course will help to increase your overall website traffic.

Number one reason why building your RSS subscriber numbers is important:

Many webmasters now realise that Google is currently number one search engine. Studying your overall website statistics will most likely show you that over 70% of your visitor traffic comes from Google search. So what happens if Google suddenly decides they don't like your website and trashes it from their search?

Think back to the latest major algorithm change Google made to their search called Big Daddy. While no one can argue that Big Daddy helped to clean up some of the spammy sites found in Google search, it also effected many honest websites, sending them to supplemental hell. Many website developers reported bad news of suddenly loosing over 70% of their visitor traffic.

Now lets say for this example, if these honest webmasters had built up their RSS subscriber numbers to 30 000 readers. With website visitors from RSS feeds being based on subscriber numbers and not search engines, at least webmasters would still see sufficient traffic, with or without Google search.