This blog runs on the WordPress platform. When you use WordPress, you have an option to use their hosted solution or to host the blog yourself. Since I wanted to get some experience with PHP and come from a technical background I chose the version that lets me host the blog on my own server, which in this case is actually someone else’s server since the server that the blog sits on is hosted by InMotion Hosting. I will have more on choosing a hosting provider in an upcoming post and multiple posts talking about setting up and configuring various parts of the blog within WordPress.
One thing I wanted to do after the blog was up and running was investigate services like Feedburner for the blog’s RSS feed. I didn’t necessarily need Feedburner. WordPress automatically provides both an RSS and an Atom feed that I could give subscribers directly, but services like Feedburner provides additional features such as:
- Analytic information such as subscriber counts and locations
- Feed customizations – For example, allowing people to share on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter or social bookmarking sites like Delicious directly from their RSS reader
- Monetize your feed through advertising within the feed
I knew about Feedburner going into this since I have a couple personal blogs that utilize Feedburner, but I wanted to see what else was out there. It turns out that there are not that many other (good) choices. I found a couple people that talked about alternatives in their blogs including:
- iElectrify - 4 Must See Feedburner Alternatives For Your Blog
- Designussion - 7 of the Best Feedburner Alternatives
I looked pretty closely at Feedblitz and while I liked what I saw it costs money to get the RSS feed management piece unless you’re already paying for their email marketing service. I’m quite a ways off from starting any email marketing so I ruled out Feedblitz. I haven’t checked out Feedity yet though I may do so since according to the two blog posts they offer a free version.
In the end I went with Feedburner, at least for now. I like that I can log in with my normal Google account and I like the additional features, all of which are provided for free. I know there are issues with subscriber counts fluctuating wildly and I realize that there is probably some motive to Google providing this service for free like there is with their other free services, but I was able to set up my feed within Feedburner quickly and utilize the free FD Feedburner Plugin for WordPress to redirect all my feed links to my new feed URL.
In my next post I’ll talk about how I setup the MyBrand feature within Feedburner so that if I ever change from Feedburner to another service like Feedity or Feedblitz the link to my feed will stay the same.
[...] Feedburner, Feedblitz, or Other? [...]