In the post Analytics for Better Optimization I told you that you can use Feedburner is a free service which also offers Feed Analytics, where you can track your traffic and other useful stuff. It would not create a feed from you from a scratch but would modify it and add it own services with it. One important point that I missed to mention was you can even use it to increase traffic to your blog, apart from just keeping an eye on it.
After you start using Feedburner you will yourself find the difference. People have almost doubled their traffic.

So now lets get to optimizing and publicizing your RSS feed to increase your Blog traffic.

Here are 11 easy and most useful ways of doing it.

1. Make you feed compatible- Some people or platforms have older version of RSS or Atom feed enabled, users of Blogger like me will be aware of this, where RSS is used more often. Don’t panic. Make your feed compatible with all feed subscription services using SmartFeed. Go to the optimize tab in FeedBurner, you’ll find a tool known as SmartFeed that will ensure maximum compatibility, and will convert it to any version the end user’s tool is asking for.

2. Explain what RSS feed is- Though it would sound odd but even today only a percentage of people who surf net know what RSS feed is, and how to use it. So, when new people click on your feed, without having one single idea about it, will know how to use it. Believe me a raw XML file is not very appealing to look at, if you are not a programming geek that is. FeedBurner knows that. All you need to do is to link the FeedBurner version of your feed rather than default. Use Browser Friendly option under Optimize tab to do it. You can even choose one of the different languages it provides and it is quite self explanatory.

3. What if your audience sends you more traffic- Nothing better than that I would say. Get your visitors spread a word about you using FeedFlare. Within the optimize tab, you will find this option. It will help you to create a community of your own around your content, and you’ll not have to touch a single line of code. Using it you will be able to provide your subscribers a way to act on your content. Now they will be able to Digg it, Del.icio.us it, email it and number of other things. Go on start spreading your content.

4.Notify all RSS and Blog tracking automatically with PingShot- Under Publicize tab, you’ll find the PingShot Service, which will save your time by automating the process and will ping all the top blog notification sites. This will be very helpful if your blog platform won’t let you to customize what services to get pinged.

5. Display your Headlines on other parts of your blog or other sites- Under Publicize tab you will find yet another cool feature, with the name of Buzz Boost. This will show part of your feed content on other parts of your site by posting a little JavaScript. This will be very useful if your blog is in a sub-directory of your site, and you want to put headlines on your Home page.

6. Catch the attention with your Headline Animator-This can again be found under Publicize tab. It is a Little Hypnotic button and it rotates headline which could be placed on your site or the forums you often visit. Clicking on the Headline will take you to the post. Something like this.

7. Get the RSS buttons for the sites of your choice- Chicklet Chooser under Publicize Tab is the way to do it. Provide your readers Feeds their way. You can find yours in my sidebar and subscribe for this blog’s feeds and be on the way of Blogging to Fame.

8. Feed Analytics- Though I already dedicated the last post about it but as I am talking about FeedBurner it would be hard to miss this point. Analyze your daily subscribers and daily click-through. This would help you know the time of the maximum visits of your audience to your blog and you can post accordingly.

9. Brand yourself through your feeds- Use Feed Image Burner under Optimize tab for this. Branding is so very important now a days and it is indeed fruitful to build your brand through your feeds. Include a smaller version of your logo, or even a special version just for your feed.

10. Include Media RSS Information for Yahoo Podcasts- Podcasting is the in thing today, and ofcourse if you are providing feeds for it you need to convert them to 2.0 instead, in order for the SmartCast option to work instead of the SmartFeed we talked before about. FeedBurner wi;; remind you which to pick.

11. Provide Summaries of your feed so that your subscribers visit your site to read more- Providing either full-feeds or a summary is totally upon your discretion. Providing just a summary sure will drive subscribers to your site to read the rest. You would ask that they may not- leave a teaser at the end of this summary so that they are bound to come to get the whole story and yes the first 200 words of your posts should be hypnotizing enough to drive them curious.

FeedBurner has lot more options, so go sign-up and explore them to bring traffic to your Blog.