After Google discontinued support for the FeedBurner API last year, we here at Typepad have looked for ways to bring similar functionality back. Luckily, we have found the perfect partnership with FeedBlitz.

FeedBlitz makes it easy to add all kinds of additional functionality to your feed. You can track how many subscriptions you have, integrate with your existing Google Analytics account, works better for SEO functions, place advertising in your feed to make some additional money, and even send out automatic e-mails with new posts to your subscribers.  You can even import in a FeedBurner feed.

Best of all, as a Typepad subscriber, this new partnership allows you to sign up for FeedBlitz for 50% off.  This means that you can take advantage of their service starting as low as $0.75 a month.  There's even a free 30 day trial to give you a chance to try it out.

You can read more about FeedBlitz and find out if it's a good fit for you here.

To connect your blog to FeedBlitz, first create a new FeedBlitz account or log into your existing account.  Follow the steps to either create a new feed or import your FeedBurner feed using their easy walk-through process.  Once you've created your feed, go to Settings > Feeds within Typepad, click the "Connect to FeedBlitz" button, enter your feed's URL, click Save, and you're done.  Easy as pie.

If you have any questions or need anything at all, FeedBlitz has their own support pages or you can always open a help ticket from within Typepad.  We're always here to help.

Welcome to our series of posts on the business of blogging! Each Thursday for 6 weeks, we'll debut a new post designed to help you build, market, and successfully create a small business with your Typepad blog. Let's get started!

Affliate programs offer one of the easiest ways to make money with your blog - sign up with a service, apply for some affliates you like, and place their links on your blog. When someone clicks through your link and makes a purchase, you'll get a commission. The details depend on the program and the particular affiliate, of course.

Affiliate programs might be a good fit for your blog if you write a particular topic or have a small but devoted and passionate audience that trusts your opinion. They're great if you do product reviews and would like a little kickback for promoting a business or service.

There are a whole bunch of affiliate programs to look into, including:

• Amazon.com Associates
• LinkShare
• CommissionJunction
• ClickBank

Some affiliate services are geared toward specific topics - look for one that best matches what you enjoy writing about.

Once you've found a program you like, you can add links into your posts using the code provided by the program. Many affiliates also offer banner ads that you can place in your blog's sidebar. Just follow our simple steps for adding code to your sidebar to add those banners to your blog.

Finally, here are some tips for successfull affiliate marketing:

• People are more likely to shop online with stores they know and trust. Keep this in mind when looking for the right source for an item you're promoting.
• Some affiliate programs offer major incentives to get you to promote their products but that doesn't mean it's always the right program for your blog. If you write about car parts, you won't make much money off a banner ad for shoes, for example. Keep it simple and targeted.
• Start small. You may be tempted to go on a spree and sign up for a dozen programs and place as many ads on your blog as you can. This can be off-putting for established readers of your content and turn away new readers. Pick a few products you really stand behind and promote those. This will keep your reputation and readership in tact.

Do you have a favorite affiliate program or tips for working with affiliates? Share it with the Typepad community in the comments for this post.

Welcome to Typepad 101! Whether you want to add some new features to your blog's design, or simply make your blog more functional, Typepad 101 has you covered.

There's so much important information that you want to highlight in your blog.  You can do this with a welcome message, by adding text to your sidebar, or by adding items to your Navigation Bar.

We've mentioned in the past how to add a Navigation Bar.  It's a straight-forward, easy process.  Just go to Design > Content, check the box for the Navigation Bar, and save your changes.

Maybe, though, you've created a new page or created a new post that you want to feature.  The Navigation Bar is already there, but how do you edit it?

Again, this is another straight-forward, easy process.  Just go back to Design > Content and click the pencil icon for the Navigation Bar.  There you can add, delete, or edit any links that already exist.

We have more information on how to do this in the Knowledge Base.

Don't forget, there are also lots of ways to style the Navigation Bar if you're a Pro Unlimited subscriber to make it match your blog's design.

As always, the Typepad team is here to help, so if you have any questions or need anything else, just let us know!

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that a new feature - the Head module - was being released to our Beta team.

We're pleased to announce that today, 100% of our Pro Unlimited subscribers now have this feature!  It's useful for adding custom meta tags, advertising scripts, or third-party libraries.

The Head module can be used for lots of exciting things, so we encourage you to check it out at Design > Head.  You can also read more about it in our Knowledge Base.

As always, if you have any questions or need anything, support is just right around the corner.

Welcome to the Typepad Master Class! If you've ever wanted to delve into more advanced trickery with your blog's design, the Master Class is for you. Topics covered in this series are for the adventurous or advanced blogger, so an intermediate to advanced level of knowledge of HTML and CSS will come in handy. Additionally, these guides will often require Custom CSS or Advanced Templates, so a Pro Unlimited account is necessary to access those areas and achieve the look and effects we cover. Interested in upgrading? Just head over to the Account link in your Dashboard and click on Billing Info to get started.

As social sharing sites become more widely used, and grow in quantity with some amazing rapidity, you may find yourself spending more time using them than your blog. Instagram receives all your photos, Twitter all your short thoughts, Facebook your rants to family members or business fans, and your online identity continues to spread across multiple services and platforms each day. Managing that many services may feel a bit overwhelming, but it's a great way to get your brand to the largest possible audience. How do you pull all of that information into a single outlet? Well, a Typepad blogger let us in on a spectacular service that does just that: RebelMouse.

RebelMouse offers a way to integrate a grid display of your social accounts, blended together. With it, you are able to offer your blog readers another way to see fresh content from you, and also enables those who don't follow your blog a method in which to see all of your content in one location.

To get started, visit RebelMouse.com, and sign up using one of the services they offer for OpenID registration. You will then need to follow the instructions to add sites to your RebelMouse dashboard. Adding sites is what allows your content to get pulled in and dynamically blended together into a single display stream.

Examples of sites you can add to the stream are:

• Instagram
  (either a specific hashtag or your entire Instagram stream)
• Twitter
  (either a specific hashtag or your entire Twitter stream)
• Facebook
• RSS feeds
• Tumblr
• Pinterest (share your entire Pinterest pinning by using your Pinterest URL and "feed.rss" added to the end; OR you can share a specific board by adding the board URL, replacing the / at the end with ".rss")

With a wide range of customizable account and display options, RebelMouse allows you to display your social media content the way you want it to be shared. You can even add Google Analytics to it if you want to track stats for the widget.

Integrating the widget can be done in two ways: as a larger part of your content, by pasting the HTML into a post or page; or as a smaller element in the sidebar. RebelMouse offers a great knowledge base article on embedding your content with ease, so make sure to check that out.

Tips for embedding RebelMouse

If you choose to display the RebelMouse widget as part of your front page, then you would:

• Go to Dashboard > Embed in your RebelMouse account.
• Select "Front Page" for the Embedded Type.
• For the Embedded Height, we recommend a fixed height if you're going to display this on the front of your blog as a Featured post. If you are going to display it on a separate Page, then you can choose Flexible height and it will auto-scroll content as you scroll down the page.
• Select "Dark" or "Light" for the Scrollbar theme, choosing the one you think would look best with your blog's theme.
• Click the "Generate" button.

If you choose to display the RebelMouse widget as part of your sidebar, then you would:

• Go to Dashboard > Embed in your RebelMouse account.
• Select "Side bar" for the Embedded Type and choose the number of posts you want to appear.
• Select "Fixed height" in the Embedded Height section, with a height you're comfortable with.
• Select "Dark" or "Light" for the Scrollbar theme, choosing the one you think would look best with your blog's theme.
• Click the "Generate" button.

Copy the code that is generated for you, pasting it into either the HTML tab of the compose editor or the Embed Your Own HTML module for the sidebar. Don't have the Embed Your Own HTML option? Use a Notes Typelist.

Once your additions have been saved, view your blog to check out how they look!