What Is a Post Feed Footer in Blogger?

A "post feed footer" is exactly as it sounds: a message that appears at the end of each post on any feed linked to your Blogger.com site. For example, say you want to include a signature image or a link to your blog's home page with every post to your feed. You would type this information -- either using plain text or HTML code -- in the text box provided inside your Blogger.com settings menu. This information will now appear at the end of every post published from your Blogger.com account to your feed.

Just as Google operates Blogger.com, it also operates its own feed service: FeedBurner. By clicking on the "My Account" link at the top right corner of your Blogger homepage, you'll see an icon for FeedBurner. If you click on this link, you'll be able to sign up for free service that will publish your blog not only on your blogspot.com web address, but also to a subscription-based service readers can sign up for -- separate from your blog's URL.

In addition to Google's FeedBurner service, there are also other types of feeds out there, such as RSS and Atom. All these feed services do essentially the same thing: expand the potential readership for your blog, both to readers and potential advertisers. Websites such as CNN, The New York Times and even Flickr publish feeds to increase their readership.

Before you create a post feed footer, you must first find this section inside your Blogger account. Start on your Blogger homepage. Click on the "Settings" link found underneath your blog's name. Next, click on the "Site Feed" tab. Scroll down to the bottom of this section, where you'll find a text box to insert your post feed footer.

You can type anything you want in this box. It could be plain text, such as "Thank you for reading." It could be your name. It could be HTML, such as a link to your blog's URL. The content of this section is up to you.

In order for others to see this post feed footer, you must first link your feed to your blog. After visiting the FeedBurner site and setting up your feed, you'll be given a redirect URL for your feed. Copy this web address, and paste it into the text box located directly above the post feed footer box inside the Site Feed section. Next, select "Full" from the "Allow Blog Feeds" drop-down box at the top of the Site Feed section. Finally, click on the "Archiving" and change the "Enable Post Feeds" setting to yes. Your blog is now ready to publish not only a feed, but the post footer as well.

You may notice another text box inside the settings section on Blogger that looks similar to the post feed footer. This is the "Post Template." It's located at the very bottom of the "Formatting" tab. Just as with the post feed footer, you can include plain text or HTML inside this box. The difference comes between where this information is published. With the post template, whatever you type into this box will be used to create a template for all your future blog posts, so you could type in a text or HTML signature that would publish at the end of each and every published post. This content will not publish to your feed, so if you want to include that signature -- or any other information included in that template -- you'll have to copy it and paste it into the post feed footer text box.