In our last post we showed how to add a RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog to make it easier for your readers to subscribe to your blog and so that you could analyse your blog subscriptions e.g. number of subscribers, Feed Readers they use. This post will show how you can add an email subscription to your blog.
Reason For Adding Email Subscription to Your Blog
However not every reader likes to use RSS, some readers prefer to receive latest posts from blogs using email subscription. This is why you will often see both email subscription and RSS feed options on blogs; bloggers are doing this to cater to the different preferences of their readers.
Readers simply enter their email address and then click on “Subscribe”. They then receive an email notifying when new posts or information have been added to the blog.
There are two main options you can use to add an email subscription to your Eublogs blog:
- Drag Email Subscription Widget onto your sidebar (here is more information about using Widgets)
- Create and add an email subscription using Feedburner for your blog.
These two options work very differently:
- Edublogs Email Subscription Widget – emails your reader immediately that a new post has been added to your blog. However to read the post your reader will need to click on a link which takes them to the post on your blog.
- Feedburner Email Subscription – emails your entire post to your readers on the day after it has been uploaded to your blog i.e. they can read the entire post as an email rather than following the link. Please note images are not displayed in the email. Advantages of Feedburner includes details of your subscribers e.g. number of email subscribers, their email addresses
Which ever email subscription you use make sure you subscribe to your blog using it; so you know what your posts look like when people receive them via email. Normally
Creating An Email Subscription For Your Blog Using Feedburner
Once you have created and added an RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog ( here are the instructions on how to add a RSS feed from Feedburner to your blog) the next step is to set up your email subscription with feedburner (follow the instructions in the diagram below).
Adding Your Feedburner Email Subscription To Your Blog
The code for your Feedburner email subscription is located under your Publicize tab. You need to add this to a text widget in your sidebar.
- On your blog dashboard, go to Design > Widgets
- Scroll down to Text widget in your available widget area (left hand side of dashboard) and click on Add.
- Click on Edit on the Text widget that has been added to your current widget area.
- Paste code for Feedburner email in Text Widget. Click on Change.
- Click on Save Changes at bottom of Current Widget area (right hand side of dashboard).
FINAL THOUGHT
Please let us know how you go adding an email subscription to your blog; especially if you have additional questions on using it.
For accurate statistics on your subscriber numbers you should redirect all your blog feed to Feedburner!
If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider 
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http://www.shortcomp.edublogs.org
@schloss Did you add a Feedburner email subscription to your blog? If so the email list will show in your Feedburner account.
I have the widget, my students have all put in thier emails to join, they have all started posting, but I see no users in my list on the admin site.
Help?
@dkbookwoman1 If you only want specific people to be able to read your blog and write comments you will need to become an Edublogs Supporter(costs $25 per year). This means you will be able to change your blog visibility so that people have to log into your blog to read and be able to post comments. No one else will be able to see what has been written.
When someone writes a comment the comment notification is sent only to the person who set up the blog i.e. the email address that was used to set up the blog. People are only notified by new posts if they subscribe in feed readers or subscribe by email subscription.
I hope this information has helped.
I need simple instructions for my blog. Here’s what I want it to look like/ act like. I need help following the paths to set it up. Your help in simple terms is appreciated.
I want:
Only Specfic users to read my blog and write comments.
The readers do no want to be notified every time a new post/comment is being made.
I would like the filter for words
Thanks
jan
Hi Sue
Yes, the same, yet, once saved the code remaining excludes the form field. The click to subscribe code works fine, just the form version does not. Must be the template then. Oh well. If anyone does find a way around, be great if you;d let me know.
Cheers
John
@John Kenworthy I did test the code on my Test blog to make sure it was working when I read Sciteacher’s response and it did work. I’m using the first embed code on the Feedburner email subscription page and don’t change the code type — i.e. I leave it as the default Typepad. Are you keeping it as the default code?
Sue and anyone else who can help
I’m having the same issue as sciteacher. Copy all the code, save the changes in a text widget and a lot of the code is not saved (ie the form part), could this be a template issue (I’m using Dignity).
Even trying in a post and a page does the same – basically seems to not ‘like’ the html code and doesn’t keep it. So theme issue or WP issue?
Anyone worked this out?
@Sciteacher Did you make sure that you copied all the code and paste it into the Text widget?
Sue,
Thanks for all the great info. I am learning a lot. However, when I tried this I was unable to see a space for people to type in there email address. I tried it a couple of times with the same result. Am I missing something? Thanks
@Mert Yes you can check your number of subscribers by email. In Feedburner dashboard click on Analyze tab and then Subscription. If you look towards the bottom of the page it shows the number of email subscribers.
@Alexandra Glad my instructions were able to help you.
@Richard I grabbed my email subscription code and added it to a text widget on my Test blog. Then pressed change on the Widget and save changes. Then I checked my blog and it was there okay. So it should be working okay with an Edublogs blog. Can I get you to try again?
Hi, Sue,
Is the HTML code pasted into the text edit box supposed to change after clicking on Change and Save? When I click on Change, nothing happens, but when I click on Save, and then go back and look at things, there has been a serious removal of code from the original.
Am I doing something wrong, or am I all wet??
Richard Buro, Temple, TX
Sue
I got to stage two – added the RSS feed and email subscription. Your instructions are easy to follow. I had previously encountered so many problems using Blogger help that nothing seemed to be working to activate the RSS. Again, thanks – you’re blog is great.
Hi Susan!
Is it possible to check the number of subscribers to my blog if I use the Email Subscription widget?
i think that making a blog is good for learning and getting your way around the internet and to learn how to use it is a nother good reson.
I am a 3rd grade teacher and have set up a blog for my students to be able to go in and submit comments and I would like to give small writing assignments on there as well, however… I can’t figure out how to allow them to leave comments and replies to my blogs.
Each time they go in, the student has to put in their name, their email address and a some kind of spam protection password (???) and then do the code thingy (enter the word you see below–that thing).
Is there anyway they can just go in and make a username and a password and then that’s it? Most 3rd graders don’t have an email address, and I don’t feel like going into yahoo.com and making 21 fake email addresses each year for my class.
Is this possible? What I’d like is each student to go in… pick a username… pick a password… and then only have to enter that in to post a comment.
Please help! Thank you… I love this blog site.
Hi Claire – yes definitely. I will add how to add a comment feed to the to-do-list.
Susan – We are happy that any type of blogger, using any blogging platform, gains from using our site. As for leaving a comment I’m always happy to support other bloggers. In terms of Subscribe by RSS or email – ideally you should add both to your site. Most readers will subscribe by RSS using a Feed Reader like Google Reader however a few prefer to use email. If you don’t have an email subscription option than those that prefer email may not subscribe to your site.
Hi Darren – yes at the moment the tips are more target at WordPress platform. Obviously when posts move onto using blogging students and tips for being a more effective blogger they will be more generic. However if you read my post on adding Feedburner feed to your blog you will see that I have included the link for additional steps for other blogging platforms. And you may not realise this but quite a few bloggers using other blogging platforms are finding these tips helpful. Take for example Susan from above. She is using Blogger and this information on Feedburner helped her work out how to add the feed and email subscription to her site.
So many great tips, Sue! Too bad they’re all WordPress specific.
With all due respect to your sponsor, are you ever planning on doing a few of these great tutorials on platforms other than WordPress?
Surely there are a few great edublogs out there that are built on other platforms.
hi i’m new at this and well i would like to everybody to look at my site and make some comments on some of the topics that i have posted on my wall. it’s called PINK LOVERS!!! stop bye and leave a comment for me and others to read. thanks.
-pinkpanther23@PINK LOVERS!!!-
Hi,
Hope you don’t mind me using your site. Not sure what “edublogs” are, I’m just have a little blog on Blogger. But this is more great info. I forgot to even check to see if anyone was subscribed to my RSS feed, until just re-reading your last post. And I was excited to see a few people had!
I might try this “subscribe by email” but which do method do you think is better?
Also thanks for leaving a comment on my site,
not to be corny but I was excited by that!
Thanks for all these great tips; my blog is looking better and better! Will you post on how to add a comment feed?
Sorry Madam English I not quite sure I understand your question. Can you give me an example of what you mean?
Thank you. I found this site to be of great help. I am still searching how to be informed if users listed as contributors post on their sites.