ProBlogger: Is it Time to Burn Feedburner? There are Alternatives

Is it Time to Burn Feedburner? There are Alternatives

Posted: 02 Dec 2014 06:51 AM PST

This is a guest contribution from Steve Williams of feedburner-alternatives.com

To build up a readership it's crucial to offer your visitors to subscribe to your blog, so they get updated every time you publish a new post. The two most important channels are email and RSS. Social media, despite the hype, is only second priority in terms of effectiveness.

Several services exist which help you to offer easy RSS & Email subscription options, ranging from RSS subscription facilitators (turning your RSS feed into a nice-to-look-at subscription screen which anyone can understand), RSS2Email as well as classic Email marketing services.

Feedburner: The top dog in decline

The – by far – most popular choice in the blogging community is (still) Feedburner. Feedburner offers solutions for both RSS and Email. And the best of it: it's 100% free.

However, since Google bought Feedburner in 2007, it never got further developed. Several features got shut down, such as the monetization tool Adsense for feeds as well as the Feedburner API.

And it's getting worse: more and more bloggers notice that Feedburner's email delivery is not working reliably anymore. And as there has been no Google support to solve the issue many bloggers have given up on Feedburner.

However: which alternative services could take Feedburner's spot?

The Feedburner alternatives

The essence of our research: there's not one solution for all. It all depends on what your needs are.

Switching from FeedBurner Decision Tree Infographic

Credit to feedburner-alternatives.com

Feedburner is not working anymore, and it's time to do the switch.
If you used Feedburner to handle your RSS feeds, Feedblitz (inexpensive) and Feedpress (slightly more expensive, but more features) are the way to go.
If you also used Feedburner to update your readers by email, then Feedblitz is the first choice which offers the most advanced solutions for both RSS and email (however, they charge quite a bit).
If you want to spice up your email newsletter a bit more, it may be worth to switch to the services which focus on those, i.e. either Mailchimp or Aweber. For the RSS-part you can then use Feedblitz or Feedpress.
Are you already using one of those alternatives? Let us know in the comments!

Steve Williams initiated www.feedburner-alternatives.com, reacting to the increasing frustration with Feedburner and the time-consuming process to find an alternative. Contact him on his page with suggestions on how to further improve the overview.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Is it Time to Burn Feedburner? There are Alternatives