One of the responders to my post yesterday wrote the following comment:
I think the subscribers thing is overrated now after I have quite blogging. I finally realized that the non-subscribers are the ones that actually participate and interact in the blog posts.
I’m not so sure about the truth of this on its face, but it kind of solidified what I’ve believed for a long time. Mainly that, you shouldn’t worry so much about your blog’s subscriber count – at least for the first year of blogging. Following is why.
2 Reasons to Forget Your Blog’s Subscriber Count
Remember, I said for the first year.
Focus: During the first year of blogging is when you will find your focus. You may start out with one idea in mind, but once you start blogging, you may find that your blog takes on a different direction.
This can happen because of something that switches within you, or the way your blog’s readers pull you.
If you’re constantly obsessing over how many subscribers you have during this time, you can easily overlook what your blog wants to be – because you’re trying to “force” it in another direction.
Systems: After you’ve finally found a tight focus for your blog — ie, nailed a niche — then it’s time to put systems and processes in place to help you get your blog to the next level.
These systems will include things like blogging routine; advertisers you plan to target; charting out a growth plan; getting a professional blog design; adding a newsletter; etc.
After all of these tangibles are in place is when you start to build your blogging empire.
If you’re too focused on your subscriber count before you get these things in place, you run the risk of losing subscribers anyway. Why? Because once you get all of these elements in place, your blog is probably going to look different from the one you started with.
This alone will lose you some subscribers – and gain you others.
Conclusion about Blog Subscribers
The bottom line with blogging is that it is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme, which is why so many focus on subscribers, subscribers, subscribers in the first place.
If you’ve thoroughly researched your niche; put all of the behind-the-scenes elements in place for success; and work you tail off; subscribers are most likely going to come anyway. But, don’t cater to them before you have a solid product/service/business to offer.
Remember, what you’re building is a blogging business; you’re not “just blogging.”
Perfect reminder!
Putting subscriber count over anything else it totally request for head health check.
But I fail to understand that quote. "participate and interact"? What is better participating than following blog daily?
Someone who made a comment and poofed is better "participation" than someone who reads blog daily for months without commenting? Or what?
I find it hilarious that right under this article is one of the largest, most obtrusive RSS "reminders" that I've ever seen.
Sound advice – one of my sites has been up and running for about 11 months now and subscriber numbers have gradually increased. i signed up for Blogging Idol in an attempt to focus on building the numbers, and I have a little but not as many as some of the contestants. One side effect of the added efforts though is increased traffic – and increased adsense revenue!
Even blogs without any subscribers could gain a whole lot of commotion and controversy. It's just in the recent year that everyone started to gain subscribers for a high count number. I admit that I have also done this too, but have just realized that it was stupid.
-Mike
The thing to remember if you're a person who watches their subscriber count daily is that those ups and downs generally represent a technical issue rather than people unsubscribing and resubscribing. My feed has been bouncing between about about 3000 and almost 4000 this last week, today it says 3400-ish, but I pretty much know for a fact that tomorrow it will be back to well over 3800 and by Thursday it may even have gone above 4000 for the first time. Users subscribe, they rarely unsubscribe and certainly not en masse. The peaks and troughs are all about Feedburner's reporting system.
I don't worry to much about subscriber count, I know if I keep on writing quality content. They will eventually find me and make the decision to subscribe or not. This is long term for me. Not an overnight quest.