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In our last post we talked about Follow vs. Feedburner.  Now we are going to discuss how to add Follow or Google Friend Connect to a Word Press blog.  This of course serves as just one more way to add reader retention to your blog. Once you finish this you can also get more Google Member tools to add more interaction to your blog it can be done the same way as this tutorial it’s just a different gadget.

*Before you start this process though I must warn you that this only works on Word Press blogs that you are hosting yourself.  This does not work on Word Press blogs that are hosted free at Word Press.

1. You’ll want to go to http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/ This link opens in a new window so you can go back and forth. If you don’t already have some type of Google account you are going to need to get one.  So, on this page you either Sign Up or Sign In.

2.  After you get signed in you’ll want click Add new site.  On that page you will fill in the name of your site and the URL.

3.  If you did the last step properly you’ll be taken to a page that says Congratulations you added…. Click the Add the Members gadget box.

4. Here is where you will choose the size of your gadget and colors. Then click generate code.  Easy enough!

5. Now you’ll want to log in to the dashboard of your Word Press blog.  Go to appearance and then to widgets.  For this choose a Text widget and drag and drop it in to where you’d like your Follow box to be on the side bar.  Click the arrow to open up the ‘editor’ on the text tab.  Copy the code from the Google Friend Connect generator to this open box.  Click save at the bottom of that box when you are done.  Adding a title to the text box is optional.

6. Visit your site, you should see your new Follow box.

There are many services to have your feed broadcast. Today we are going to talk about Follow, which is a part of Blogger blogs, and Feedburner and some of the benefits of both of them.  If I had to choose between one or the other for reader retention Feedburner would win hands down.  I think Follow does have several advantages of it’s own. So, let’s discuss both.

I’m sure by now in your surfing the web you have run across the Follow button on Blogger, or blogspot, blogs with the great little pictures under it.  I have to admit it is exciting to see the number of followers increase on your blog.  I believe though that Follow gives us a false sense of who is really keeping up with our postings and how many people are actually tuned into your blog.  You see with Follow they will only see your blog by logging into their dashboard at the Blogger site and scrolling down to the bottom to see sites they follow.  The other way they could see your blog is if they take the extra steps at the dashboard page after they push the Follow button to have it published elsewhere like their homepage or receive it through email.  Most people will not take those extra steps, one because they don’t realize they are there and two because it’s a hassle.

I wouldn’t delete it from your site though.  It does serve it’s purpose and like I said some reader retention is going to come of it, just don’t expect it to be a big percentage.

One thing we really like about Follow though is the fact that every blog you personally click the Follow button and sign up for leaves a little avatar with the link to your blogger profile and in turn a link to your blogs.  This is great not only because a physical person could click on it but the itsy bitsy Google spider is also going to see more and more of you as you “Follow” other blogs.  It’s zero hassle backlinking!!! Gotta love that.

Now onto Feedburner.  Feedburner is just another service that Google has aquired so you can use the same account you use for Blogger, Adsense, and the like, for Feedburner.  You can see my Feedburner in the upper right hand corner of this blog where it says Subscribe Via Email. I believe this service is the best for a high percentage of reader retention because they are receiving your posts via their email. But wait it gets better!!! (Now I feel like the Sham Wow guy!) Really though it is exciting that you can monetize your feeds so that every email that is delivered to your readers contains Google Adsense, if you want them to.  So, not only do you have a chance to make money on your site itself, you have the chance to profit from one of your subscribers right there in their email inbox. And as an added bonus! Your post could be so great they might even foward it to a friend or two… or maybe their whole darn email list.  There goes your blog post being passed around via email with the link to your site and your Google Adsense embedded.  Pretty cool stuff!

To sum it up if you have a blog hosted at Blogger I strongly recommend you use both Follow and Feedburner for the best possible results.

We’ve talked about using link exchanges here before.  Now we are going to take it up a level!  Are you excited or what!?

Link exchanges are mutually beneficial in that both of you get a link out there for potential visitors to find you, as well as those search engines.  If you tend the relationships of those you have exchanged links with I would suggest contacting them about posting each others links via twitter and facebook maybe, once or maybe on a regular basis.

You can also start what I like to refer to as a link club.  This is when many bloggers get together on a similar topic.  All the bloggers get to exchange links without even having to personally contact each other.  Here is a great example of how this works.

I’m always happy to hear from you please feel free to post your questions or comments.