Not all visitors to your WordPress blog will be familiar with RSS feeds or how they work, while some other visitors just don’t want to mess with using a feed reader. RSS isn’t the only push-delivery method out there: email subscription is another great service to offer to your visitors.
First you’ll need an email subscription service that’ll send out the emails for you. The service I recommend is Feedburner. Check out my email subscription form in the sidebar to see how it looks and works.
First setup a Feedburner feed if you don’t have one already. Then follow these steps:
- Go to Feedburner.com and login
- Click “My Feeds” in the upper-left-hand corner
- Select your feed from the list
- Click the “Publicize” tab
- Click “Email Subscriptions” on the left
- Make sure “Feedburner” is selected, and click “Activate”
- Copy the HTML code in the box
- Login to your WordPress blog’s administration area
- Go to the “Appearance” section (a.k.a. “Design,” “Presentation,” or “Themes” in versions prior to 2.7)
- If you’re using Widgets in your sidebar, click the “Widgets” sub-tab. Add a “Text” widget to the sidebar you want, and paste the HTML code in the configuration section. Save your changes, and that’s it!
- If you’re not using widgets, you’ll need to have basic knowledge of HTML. First click the “Editor” or “Theme Editor” subpanel, and select “Sidebar” from the list. Usually sidebar modules go between <li></li> tags; some other themes use <div>. Paste the code in your sidebar between the appropriate set of tags in the location you want, click Save, and you’re done!
Subscribe to feed
Thanks for this information. I use google feed burner for the first time and my themes has feed burner built-in but I don’t how to activate it. I read this information searched by Google and Finally, I was able to use it now. Thanks.
Hello,
I really like the two check box options you have below your comments. Could you please tell me what code or plugin you used to implement this? Thanks!
@Melissa: The checkbox to subscribe to future comments is added by the Subscribe to Comments plugin. The checkbox to subscribe to future posts from the blog is added by a custom plugin I wrote (which I might release at some point, but not anytime soon).
Thank you very much for the directions you gave!
Sweet. Thanks for the info. I will be setting up feedburner soon!
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I know I don’t know you, but I love you! I’m a novice blogger trying to set-up my blog all by myself and I’ve been looking for a Plug-in to do this to no avail. Your directions were PERFECT and to the point. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Courtney
Thank you so very much for your simple & straight to the point explanation
In appreciation, Evgeny
Does Feedburner email enable us to have the email addresses of subscribers or does the data go strictly to feedburner? Thanks.
Yes, Feedburner lets you see your subscribers’ email addresses.
You have been very helpful! Thanks!
I really like two check box option you have below your comments. Could you please tell me what code or plugin you used to implement this? Thanks!
Thank You very much for your direction John, very usefulllll
tonns of thanx for this information…
can you also help me out with one more proble..?
my google chrome readers are not able to subscribe to my rss feeds..can you please provide some solution to this ?
Question: The emails that my subscribers are receiving via Google Feedburner Email Subscription do not look right. There are no spaces for paragraphs, and text is appearing on the same line as photos – it doesn’t look this way on the WordPress blog itself when I post. My subscribers are getting something in their inbox that looks awful and is hard to read. Any suggestions on formatting or a work-around?
@Renee: Do the posts also look that way when you view it in a feedreader like Google Reader?
full disclosure: tech dummie here. I just went on to Google Reader to try and create an account to see what it looks like. no clue how to do this… give me some time (or give me directions?)
Okay, I got Google REader working and it looks perfect in Google reader. Now what?
If it looks perfect in Google Reader, it sounds like it may be a Feedburner issue, since Google Reader and Feedburner both read your site content from the same source (your RSS feed). I’d suggest posting a tech support query in the Feedburner Help Group.
Will do – thank you!!
Thank you so much John. I had been trying to figure this out for a while, and this page made it so easy. Now I’m not so frustrated with feedburner!
Thank you so much for this great info! It was clear and helpful. I didn’t understand feedburner, and didn’t know I needed to set up and account and activate it in order to enable folks to subscribe by email. Thank you!!
Thank you so much for this tip! I was wracking my brains trying to figure out how to do it. Followed your directions and presto! It worked. Awesome.
this was extremely helpful–just wanted to say thanks!
Can we customize the design of this plugin by css or it is impossible. I’d like to make it like in sosnovskij . ru You can see at right top of that site. Thanks for useful advises
Wow John over 3 years later and it still works like a charm! Thank you very easy to follow!
Joshua the ZamuraiBlogger
I get as far as step 10, but when I post the HTML there are FORM tags that are removed when I click save.
WordPress doesn’t like something…
Are you using an administrator account on your blog? If not, WordPress will remove the form tags. If that’s the case, you’ll need to add the HTML while logged in with an admin account.
Hi John, I really struggled with this (hence past 1am) until I stumbled over your post. Thanks so much for the perfect explanation, my email subscription is beautifully set up now.
Hi,
I am totally new to blogging and trying to figure some things out. I installed a widget called subscription options “subscription options” and am trying to add email subscription through freeburner. The widget asks for the freeburner email service URL and I can’t figure out how to find that. Do you have any idea what that is or how I find it? Please explain very basically if you do as I’m just getting started. I appreciate any help you can give.
thanks, RT.
Actually… never mind I figured it out. For anyone else that’s curious. Go to myfeeds/publicize/email subscriptions/preview subscription links/right click on pop up page (or ctrl click for mac) see page source = feedburner email service url.
Thank you so much for this tip! I have implemented on my site.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the helpful info, John. I’ve just moved from Blogger to WordPress and changed the name of my blog. I’ve got a question. Sorry, it’s a little convoluted – I’ll explain as best I can.
I couldn’t get the FB Subscription Form Code to work right. I paste it in and then when I click “save,” everything disappears except:
Enter your email address:Delivered by FeedBurner.
I checked, and I am listed as an administrator, so I don’t know what that’s about, but the upshot is that I’m using the Subscription Link Code instead. That’s working fine, and the link text says “Subscribe to “new name of blog” by email,” but when somebody goes to the subscribe page, the message says “FeedBurner activates your subscription to “OLD name of blog” once you respond to this verification message.” I can’t figure out how to change that. I’ve changed the name in the FB “edit feed details” section, but the old name is still hanging around someplace. If I need to use the Subscription Link Code instead of the Subscription Form code, it would be awesome if the message on the subscribe page had the current name of the blog. Any idea where/how to change that?
Thanks very much!
I got the name thing figured out; it was under Feedburner’s “Email Branding” settings. But if you have a suggestion about how I might be able to use the form code instead of the link code, I’m all ears.
Thanks again!
@Neil: Are you using WordPress.com or WordPress.org? It sounds like you’re using WordPress.com, since they don’t allow form code. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do about it, as far as I know. Self-hosted WordPress.org installations on the other hand should let administrators add form code, so if you’re using WordPress.org with an admin account and it’s still removing the code, then it’s probably a plugin or theme that’s removing it, so I’d try disabling all plugins and reverting to the default theme to see if that’s causing it.
Thanks for the reply. You’re right, I’m using wordpress.com. If I wanted to use wordpress.org, I’d have to purchase my own domain and pay for hosting somewhere, right?
Hi John,
I recently installed Feedburner and some of my subscribers are having issues activating their subsciptions. I have several “unverified” subscribers, one being my sister, and she said she entered her email address but never got an email to confirm the subscription. I fear that others are having that same issue. Any advice?
john u r doing good job.i am searching this Widgets for my blog.2 month ago i was get wordpress plugin but its not properly work.now i am very happy to using.through your help i say you a lot of thanks
God bless you
Thank you so much! This was the most helpful bit of advice I’ve found all night. It made perfect sense and worked beautifully. Thank you!!