Google’s Feedburner allows you to set up free email updates based on your RSS feed.  Here’s an easy tutorial on how to set it up.

Burn Your Feeds

You first need to head over to Feedburner to claim your blog’s RSS feed.  Log in with your Google account and enter the URL of your feed into the “Burn a feed right this instant” box:

Click next and you’ll be asked to choose a title and address – the defaults are usually fine.   Follow the rest of the instructions through and you should arrive at the Feed Management page.

Enable Email Subscriptions

Hit the “Publicize” tab and select “Email Subscriptions” from the left hand side.

Click “Activate” to enable the feature.

Customisation

In the left hand navigation you should now see four more options below “Email Subscriptions”.

“Communications Preferences” allows you to change the from address and subject/body of the confirmation email your readers will receive on subscription.

“Email Branding” lets you edit your email’s subject, fonts, colors, and allows you to add a logo.

At this stage it may be wise to edit the subscription email and subjects so that the tone is consistent with your blog.  The applies to fonts and colours too – leaving the email as it came out of the box looks dull and lazy.

Finally the “Delivery Options” page lets you customise the time zone and delivery window.  Ensure that the time zone matches that of the geographic location of the majority of your readers (check this in Google Analytics) and think about the best time of day for your email to go out.  The nature of your content may dictate this, but generally just before lunch is a good shout.

Add to your Blog

Go to the “Subscription Management” page to get the code to add a means of subscription to your blog.  The Subscription Form Code adds a form like this:

The Subscription Link Code adds a straight link.  There are also widgets available for TypePad and Blogger.

Simple!