Today for Better Blogging I am going to give some helpful hints on counters and feed subscriptions and readers and rss feeds.

Counters are a great way to see who comes to your blog and why or how they got there.

Sitemeter is a wonderful counter. They have referring urls available for you to see. It shows where your visitors are coming from. From looking at your referrals you can see what your most popular search is.
Sitemeter also has location information. You can see the city and state that the visitor is coming from.
You can see the ip’s of the visitors and what type of browser they used to view your site.
Sitemeter shows the outclicks of your visitors, and how long they were at your site.
Sitemeter has a world map also that will show you on a map where your visitors come from.
It also has a 7 day statistical graph chart. It will show you how many visitors you had each day of the week.
Sitemeter has many different types of codes to use. Depending on what type of blog you use. The javascript code will show you the referrals and location, so make sure that is the one you grab when you get your code.
You can also change the way your counter looks. Sitemeter has a place where you can change the font, the size and the color.
Sitemeter is the best counter I have found. I really enjoy looking at my Sitemeter and seeing what my most popular searches are. It helps me be a better blogger, by knowing what people are looking for in my blog.

Another counter is Homeschool Gold Sites. It is a different type of counter than Sitemeter though.
Homeschool Gold Sites shows how many people you have a day and ranks you accordingly. You can see if you have any reviews and ratings. It will also show you what your highest day of visitors was.
When Mom, Jocelyn and I first got our HSG counters there was less than 20 people on there. Now there are more than 80. Lol.
Blogstatter is another version of Homeschool Gold, but is less known. It counts the same way. You can have reviews and ratings, and see what your highest day of visitors was.
Clustrmaps is another way to see how many people come to your blog. You can see the areas of where most of your visitors come from. It shows your statistics too.

Feeds and RSS is something I have recently found out is very nice in being able to read your favorite blogs without having to go to their blogs. It’s really nice when you have dial up to just go to a reader or your email and be able to read those blogs that are so beautiful, yet have a lot of graphics on the and saves time by just reading them all at once.
There are quite a few great readers that are available. Feedburner, Feedblitz, Bloglines, and Technorati to name a few.
Before you can do this though, you need to make sure that RSS feed is being published. If it is not published you will be not able to be on other’s readers. When you publish your feed, you want it in HTML form. If you choose this option your feed will be published in the exact way you post it. i.e. pictures, font, color, etc.

Feedburner and Feedblitz are similar. I like Feedburner better though. They site is a little confusing at first, but is easy to master. When you validate your feed, you will then be able to get the code to put on your blog, so that your readers can sign up for email notifications of new blog posts. When you get set, click on the name of your blog to go to your dashboard for customization.
You can customize the way the Feedburner subscription widget looks on your blog, and the way the email will look when it is sent out. You can also get an email widget code that you can put in your email coding, so when you send an email it will show your latest posts. That can be customized to look they way you want too.
You can also see who has subscribe to your Feedburner. When you log in, click on the “FEED TITLE“, it takes you to the dashboard, then click on “See more about your subscribers“. The page it takes you to will show you a diagram of your subscribers compatibility, email subscriptions, bots and other information. Click on “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions“, then “Manage your email subscriber list“, to see the email address of your subscribers.
To get the Headline Animator, click on the link under Services in Publicize. You can customize everything from there.
To get a Chicklet, click on FeedCount in Services. You can change everything about it also on there too.
To get the email widget, click on Email Subscription, from there you can get the code. The Headline Animator is where you customize this widget.

Bloglines is another great reader. You can allow your subscription to be public or private. You can read whole posts of those blogs you are subscribed to.
In your Bloglines you can make groups and put specific blogs in those groups, so it will be even easier to read. To do this, click on the edit in the sidebar, from there you can add folders and put the feeds in the folders you want.
There aren’t too many tricks to Bloglines, so it is pretty easy to use.

Another great reader is Feevy. With Feevy, you can see part of your favorite bloggers newest posts on your blog. It is very easy to manage and add blogs on there.

Well I hope this helps you become a Better Blogger. These are great ways to read other’s blog easier and simpler and also to stat your own blog.
Better Blogging to you all!!
Prayers and Blessings,

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