Every blogger is on the lookout for different ways to increase their feed subscribers. You should be no exception. A common misconception is that just because you have more traffic you have more subscribers, this is not completely true.
What is true is that more traffic gives you more people to promote your feeds to, but if you are not successfully promoting you will not reach potential subscribers as you should be. If you take a look at the Technorati Top 100 you will find that even the most successful bloggers relentlessly promote their RSS feeds to their readers. So the big question is, what can you do to increase subscriptions for your blog?
- Don’t be shy, just put it out there and recruit. Ask your readers to subscribe to your feeds, let them know you want them to. Include something catchy at the bottom of every post with a link to sign-up.
- Place your RSS icons prominently. Make your feed subscriptions a main part of your design. Create a box that is big and bright with large icons so they stand out. Some people won’t think to sign-up if they aren’t reminded.
- Another technique becoming more common is offering something to people for signing-up. Write an ebook or pamphlet on your topic that all subscribers get free access to.
- Create a subscription page. Many bloggers are now creating subscription pages for people to go and easily sign-up.
These are four tips that if used correctly are sure to build your subscriber base. Do you have any techniques you use? Let us all know your secrets in the comments below.
Yep, I agree, if you want traffic you need to make your readers subscribe to your rss its as important as writing good content.
I think I've done my job on my blog. RSS feeds are seen at first glance.
Also there are some subtle reminders
I also think its not just about exposure, but about captivating, make the reader WANT to add your RSS feed to their rss reader.
Guest blogging works extraordinarily well, too, because the traffic is predisposed to like you based on the implicit recommendation from the referring blog.
The problem with guest blogging is that you already need to "be someone" in order to get the "start" to guest blog on your blog.
Great post, thanks for sharing these tips. You're right, even if you have thousands of visitors you won't get many of them as subscribers if you don't promote your feeds. Hopefully your article will inspire many people to work on getting their feeds out there. Thanks!
I'm currently working on that myself. I add a little blurb after every post that will remind others to sign up if they like.
I do love your idea about the separate page and will create this once my new template is up and running.
Thanks
Monika
remind your reader to subscribe and leave a link to the subscription page at end of your post
I found the end of the posts one of the most eye catching places of my blog. In fact the little AsSense and the bottom of each post on http://todayisnotoveryet.com is the spot that gets the most revenue for me.
Zuggu – With regards to guest blogging. I have to disagree with what you said. You will certainly get more offers for guest blogging if you are well known but a new blogger can get guest blogging jobs too, they just have to work for it a bit more. Write an email to the site you want to write on and link to 4 or 5 of your best articles and I'm sure you will get a good response ratio
Patric – I've actually not came across too many blogs with dedicated subscription pages. It's a good idea though.
@Kevin: Yes Kevin, thats probably right. I think that average blogs not getting guest bloggers to write on their blogs responds more to insecurities of the blogger on contacting the "star" than on the "star" being available or willing to write something on the "average" blog.
Talking about that, feel free to guest blog on my blog whenever you want hehe