I mentioned before the importance of email subscriptions and making your sign-up form really easy to find. I see a lot of blogs with the generic FeedBurner sign-up form in their sidebar. The default form looks like this:
Now, there isn't anything wrong with this and if you have this in your sidebar, way to go! Capturing email addresses, whether for your feed or via a separate newsletter (like my Behind the Scenes newsletter), is excellent.
But I think it's a good idea to personalize it a bit, make it unique.
Tell your readers *why* they should sign up for your list, not just *that* they should. (<–psst…tweet this tip!)
So, I thought I'd show you a few edits you can make to your your FeedBurner sign-up form. My edits in the video tutorial are very basic, so put some personality into it! Tell them what they'll get and why it's worth it for them to sign up. I also recommend you link to your privacy policy (see my sidebar for example).
Here ya go:
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Video Notes:
- Login to FeedBurner, choose your feed name, click the "Publicize" tab –> "Email Subscriptions" –> "Subscription Management."
- Grab the code in the first box and copy it.
- Go to your WordPress Dashboard –> Appearance –> Widgets.
- Slide a a text widget into the place you'd like the form to appear, such as your sidebar.
- When the text widget opens, paste the code into the box.
- When editing the code, make sure you edit between opening and closing HTML tags. If you delete any of the < or > etc. you might make things wonky, so be very careful!
- Save your widget and refresh your page to see the changes.
- Done!
Hi Amy,
SO thankful for all the info you provide to all of us!
I have a question related to email subscriptions, which I hope is ok. I installed the feedburner email subscriptions on my site, but noticed that when the emails arrive in the inbox, if I hover above "From" with my mouse, it shows my *personal* gmail address and my whole name, instead of the nickname I blog under! Feedburner is set up with my blog email address (which is correct), so I'm not understanding why my personal information is showing up. Does that make sense?
Thanks for all you do.
Go into your Gmail settings and then click the "Accounts and Import" tab. Click the "edit info" link to the right of the email address you used for FeedBurner. It gives you the option to change the name that shows up when an email is sent from that address.
Can you believe that I've already done this? I went back in and re-typed and re-saved the same info, so hoping that it will "reset" somehow. Wierd! But thanks for your reply
Hi Amy
XOXOXO I love these little tips. I have been wanting to change this box on my sidebar for a long time, but was always afraid I would mess something up. You give me "code confidence" . I just did it and it took less than 2 minutes.
Thank you so much.
My best- Diane
Thanks Amy! This really helped!
This is awesome! Thank you so much! I just started reading your blog recently and I absolutely love it! Thanks for everything you do!
Hi, Amy! I just want to say thanks for the tips on how to change the Feedburner email signup box. It's giving me some confidence in dealing with behind-the-scenes html code, especially since I'm pretty much learning as I go along. Using the simple example of the email signup box, how do you add color and change fonts? I've been doing a little research but I think I'm paralyzing myself with too much info – that's why I'm here.
Any small piece of advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
2 questions, Amy:
1. In my blog (WordPress.org) it says "Feed On" on the left side and underneath that has a "subscribe by mail" option. "Feed on" is too weird – do you have any ideas if I can change that headline and just what it should say? (it also has "Posts RSS" and "Comments RSS" which mean NOTHING to the bulk of my readers)
2. Is there any way to learn who has actually subscribed? The only way I know is that people tell me when I ask. Seems there should be a way to read the list of subscribers and perhaps see their eddresses.
Thank you so much for all your fabulous information!
Great article, as usual, Amy!
I'm new to all this… I set up a Feedburner email subscription list and subscribed myself under my personal email address so I can see my own email list. But it looks kind of weird… it comes from "Heavenly Cent" and the subject ALSO says "Heavenly Cent". I think I need to change the subject somehow…and not sure WHAT to change it too… Also, is it a good idea to do 1 email list, or several? Since I'm blogging some deals I wondered if I should somehow set up 1 for each store. And of course, I have NO idea how to do that either…
Do you have any other information on Feedburner email subscriptions so I can research this some more.
It feels like there is a LOT to do to get a blog up and running the way I want it!
There is a lot to learn, but no need to rush. Yes, you could create as many feeds as you like. To do that, I'd pay for a service like FeedBlitz. I wrote more about FeedBurner here.
You have been such a tremendous help to all us newbies!! Thank you Amy:) I have a question about the social network sidebar you have to the right (which I installed, but it came out on the left). I much prefer the look of the green one you have on the left side of your page. What's the difference in their functions?? It would seem to be redundant to me..but then again, what do I know! Thanks
Hi Dot. Well, you're right, I was just thinking the other day it is a bit redundant.
Just haven't gotten around to figuring out how I'm going to make them mesh yet. The green ones were made by Joy at Five J's Design. There are also plugins for them. I wrote about one plugin here.
I've been meaning to do this, but always forget when I'm in my dashboard. Thanks for the reminder!
Ok! I did actually understand everything in the video (I'm sort of a coding dummy!), but I have another question. I put the subscription form on a page on my blog, and it got all wide instead of being nice and narrow. Is there a quick coding fix for that?
Here's what I'm talking about : http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/subscribe/
Yes, find the words "text-align:center;" which is right in the first line or two of the code. Right after the ; and before the closing quotes, type in "width:200px;" (no quotes). You can play with the 200 after you try it. So, it'll look like ….text-align:center;width:200px;"…
You are awesome-sauce!!! YAY!!!! It worked. I am super happy.
Ok, now, I have one other question. If I want to make the subscribe button a different color (right now it's a very non-descript shade of gray, the same as the email address space), how would I do that? I know how to look up the html for color codes, but I'm confused about where I would put that code.
If you don't have time to answer, no worries. I'm just happy my box isn't so wide anymore!
Yay! Thanks so much. Those wide boxes were driving me crazy!
I've been too lazy to do this the last year-and-a-half of blogging…. Thanks for the reminder!
Thank you so much for your help on this. I changed it and by mistake also made it smaller which I like! All I did was clicked the box "automatically add paragraphs" and it brought the subscribe box to the right of where to input your email address. I should be getting more subscriptions now!
Hi Amy
I so appreciate all your wonderful tips. I am wondering if I would follow the same instructions since I use blogger? Thank you!
Yes, I believe it should be the same. Give it a whirl in an HTML gadget.
Whew! I swear I had done this before, but every time I learn something new. I have found if I add a new post and play around with the formatting in there and then copy the code over to my widget it makes my life a bit easier. In this case I wanted to add a photo into the widget as well as the sign up info.
Now that it's done I want to make it a little less boring….hopefully in time
Thanks for your help!
Kind of an obvious tip, and yet I'd never thought of it before! You're totally right, why not do some free, easy marketing of yourself on there? I'm going to change mine now!
Thank you so much, Amy! I had recently tried to figure out how to do that and wasn't brave enough to mess with the code. You made it easy enough even for me!
Glad it helped!
I used to be suggested this website through my cousin. I'm now not sure whether this submit is written via him as nobody else realize such unique about my difficulty. You are amazing! Thanks!
I have a subscribe by email thingy but I know there is a way to see the people who subscribe to your blog – how do I see that list? I use blogger.
Well, you can see the email addresses (not names) by going to FeedBurner –> your feed name –> Publicize –> Email Subscriptions –> View Subscriber Details (a link at the very bottom of the page).
Julie: I use Blogger. This is the method I used to view subscribers:
1) Sign into your Blogger Blog.
2) Click "View blog."
3) Below the "Follow by Email" gadget there's a small tool icon. Click on it to edit.
4) Pop-up appears "Configure Follow By Email."( This window also allows you to change the text of the email button without going through the HTML process described in this post. Thanks Blogger.) Directly above the "save" button, click on "View Stats and learn more." This leads you to the FeedBurner website, where you can either follow the path Amy outlined or continue as follows:
5) Click on your "feed title," which is the name of your blog.
6) Under Feed Stats, click on Subscribers.
7) Click on FeedBurner Email Subscriptions and a drop down menu opens.
8) Click on "Manage your email subscribers list."
9) Scroll down to "View Subscribers."
Thanks, Ann Marie!
Nice straightforward tutorial, Amy.
My feed burner was not working properly for a while. I may have disabled it a little while back.
Though, I have been considering moving to mail chimp's free service, I may now just give Feed Burner another whirl.
Mail Chimp and Aweber do have a great variety of contact(subscribe) forms to choose from and also many other features.
Though, Aweber looks to be a great service, they do not offer a free deal( Mail chimp does).
By the way, Amy, I like the little Email box you have added on the top left hand side.
It is very unobtrusive, yet, seems to fit in with your website theme perfectly.
Nice tutorial. I use css to customize feedburner email subscription form in my blogger blog. This tutorial also good. Thanks for share.
Amy, this works for blogger too?
Sinea: See my reply comment for Julie. Blogger makes it easy to change the wording for your email subscription gadget. No need to add HTML for simple changes. Cheers!
how did you??:
add your pic to the feedburner
add white background to feedburner
add "enter email here…" in feedburner box?
hi amy
i have question how to i edit the size of the email sign up form
without touching the default size of the wordpress text widget?
oh thank u very much !!!
I have 4 blogs to manage. Blogging is my past time, doing it only I have time available.
Besides, I still have to maintain these 4 blogs, including social accounts.
So time is very short for me.
I googled "putting feedburner, email subscription code in wordpress" and search results show 2 links on top.
Click the first one, I browse and scroll down. It was too detailed and technical. Give up, and
I came back to the 2nd searched link, i.e. your post.
What a relief to see your content on white background.
Realized that your post is short and simple post, as I read thru'
All I want to say is thank you for saving my time, Great content and video!
Edwin
Do I want the subscribe on every page of my website, or just on my blog page? If only on one page, how do I take it off the others? Thanks for your tips. They have been a life-saver!
Frankly, I'm not sure why I need Feedburner or what it is (do you have a basic "this is what Feedburner is" article?). I use MailChimp for my e-mail newsletters and I have a form at my site folks can sign up to. Does that cover me? Thanks.
MailChimp is great for email subs. On the other hand, FeedBurner makes it easy for people to subscribe to your blog but prefer to get updates in a Reader instead of in their email inbox. For example, I subscribe to a few hundred blogs but I catch up on those new posts in Google Reader. If I subscribed to all of those blogs via email, my inbox would be beastly. I hope that clears it up a bit!
I'm afraid it's still fuzzy, Amy. Folks can always just copy and paste the rss into their Google Reader and see what's newly posted that way. There's really no reason to subscribe via FeedBurner to any of those sites. So what's the difference? Google Reader allows them to see what the new posts at that site are. FeedBurner does the same thing, right? So really MailChimp is for formal newsletters. FeedBurner just sounds like a way to get the new content emailed instead to those who don't want to use rss at Google Reader or another rss reader. Right? Or maybe I'm confused still. Thanks for your help. I've been confused by all this "feed" business for a while, and I'm still not sure I'm getting it.
I've been looking all over the blogosphere for this post. Glad to have stumbled upon your great site. Thanks for sharing this. Truly helpful.
Glad it helped!
Hi Amy
I have been here several times and enjoy reading your tips. I have a problem with feedburner and I am wondering if you can help me out. I have tried several forums but no one seems to be able to help.
My website has a dark background therefore I use white fonts when publishing. My feedburner email that subscribers get has a white background and white fonts. Pictures show up and headlines show up but the text does not. Approximately 10 people sign up a day and I generally lose about 5-7 a day. I believe it it because they can't read the email. I am in desperate need of help. any ideas on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated.
blog address is http://www.educatinghumanity.com
feed address is http://www.educatinghumanity.com/feeds/posts/default
Thanks Much
Richard
Hi Richard. Login to FeedBurner –> Publicize –> Email Subscriptions –> Email Branding –> scroll down until you see "Body Color" and change the #ffffff to #000000. Hope that helps!
Hi, I went ahead and did this and was wondering like many others in the comment section can you some how make your box have a bit of color in it? I would love to see a tutorial on that!
I subscribed to my blog per your suggestion and I've noticed that when I receive an email of a new post the subject line is the exact same thing as the sender. For example it will say: An Alli Event on the subject line, too. How can I change that to actually be the subject I'm posting about (like the emails I get from you)? I'm sure it's something simple that the novice in me is overlooking.
I've followed every step you've given and have been blogging for almost a month now. And everything has worked perfectly and usually on the very first try. Yes! I just can't figure out how to change the subject line. Thanks!
Log into FeedBurner.
Click the Publicize tab.
Click Email Subscriptions.
Click Email Branding.
There you will see the option to change the way your emails are titled.
I have an issue with feedburner that I just cannot figure out. When somebody subscribes to my blog, they enter their address on my home page and click the subscribe button. Then the feedburner popup comes up (where you would usually enter the captcha) and they have to enter their address all over again.
I've subscribed to other blogs where the subscribe box just carries my email address over to the popup so I don't have to reenter it.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Hi Tiffany,
Hmmm…I'm not entirely sure, but my first guess is that the problem lies in the code in your sidebar widget for FeedBurner. I would probably into FeedBurner, check all the settings, copy the code again for the form and then paste it into a new widget.
I hope that helps!
Hello,
I use blogger and have recently signed up with Feedburner. I am having trouble viewing any of the information that I have customised on the actual blog page. I have added an email subscription box and a bunch of other customised things and nothing is showing. The only new thing that has been added is the description of my blog. Everything else looks exactly the same. Do you know why this could be happening?
Would really appreciate your help!
Thank you,
Susie!!
Hi Susie, I'm not as familiar with Blogger anymore, but not sure why things wouldn't be showing up for you. I would google around a bit and see if anyone else is having the same type of problem. Blogger support is virtually nonexistent, unfortunately, but many times you can search and find fixes for problems for others. All the best as you search!