7 Die-Hard Ways to Get More RSS Subscribers

A question that has consumed most, if not all new bloggers is – ‘How can I get more RSS Subscribers?’

Most of us assume that the number of RSS Subscribers is a direct reflection upon ’success.’ This is relatively true because ultimately your blogging goal is to create a strong readership – inevitably the number of subscribers is a representation of exactly that.

However, we should not center our goals around this single task of increasing the number of subscribers. Instead we should improve other aspects such as quality content and quality exposure – then the subscribers will just snowball into the hundreds if not thousands.

Having said that though, you should keep any eye out on the number of your readers. So here are 7 simple yet die-hard ways YOU can do yourself to get more loyal readers.

1. Be Clear & Concise

Keep your “Subscribe” button accessible at all times, and make it visible. There’s no point having a RSS Subscription service if no-one can see it. Once you hit a fair amount of readers, start showing it off so other people will be convinced to follow you too. I would recommend having an iconic image of the RSS Feed somewhere near the subscription – because a visual representation does wonders.

2. Reward your Readers

Offering an incentive or reward for your readers, will entice them to be more aware of your content. It can be anything from a free-ad space to content just for your Subscribers. Over at Blogussion, we are starting to reward our readers with uncharted content, which is only accessible by them, weekly updates on Do-Follow Blogs/Forums and even free WP-Themes coded by Alex Fraiser himself.

Whatever you offer them, just keep in mind they are human just like you – how would you feel if you got a freebie? What would you want to receive?

3. Use FeedBurner

FeedBurner doesn’t need much of an introduction, but it’s shocking to see that many bloggers are unaware of it. So, I won’t neglect to mention it in this post. Last year, FeedBurner was bought by Google for more than $100 million if I remember correctly, and it has turned out to be worth every penny. FeedBurner provides an unprecedentedly useful set of services/tools to really excel in satisfying your RSS/Email/PodCast Subscribers.

There’s a lot you can do with FeedBurner, and unfortunately I won’t be able to cover it in this post – but I will recommend looking into one thing in particular. FeedBurner provides a service called “FeedFlares” and you should really look into it. It allows you to place a link that ONLY your subscribers can see. This can be used for providing that incentive I was talking about before

4. Offer More than just RSS

Everyone’s different. I say this because you should not force your readers and strict them just to RSS Subscriptions. What if they prefer an email subscription or perhaps a weekly newsletter? Offer all these options and you will open options to your readers. FeedBurner provides these services for free and it’s worth spending some time looking into the tools they offer.

5. Decide Between Full/Excerpt RSS

This has been a debated topic ever since RSS Feeds came into the picture of blogging. It really depends on how you look at it. If you arer sinister enough to emulate such devious plans, you would only post an excerpt on the RSS Feed so your readers would have to visit your site to view the rest of the content. That’s great, but it really needs to be balanced out over the fact – it can be annoying.

6. Add your Feed on Forums

Suprisingly, this method has been overlooked by many bloggers. I added my RSS Feed onto my DigitalPoint profile recently and carefully reviewing our traffic logs – we saw nearly a 10% increase in traffic just through that feed. In fact it was so overwhelming, I even started renting other people’s RSS Feed bar on the DigitalPoint and we’ve seen a steady flow of traffic from them. I bought about 10 RSS Slots on DigitalPoint, for 10cents each – it returned about 200-400 loyal readers!

7. Guest Post

Guest Posting is a great way to share your thoughts with other people. In return of sharing your ideas with more people, the host of your guest post gets uniquely written free content. So, it’s a win-win situation. Aim for similar sites to your blog, so will get in touch with targeted visitors.

A simple email is all that is needed to start guest posting. For example, I contacted Kevin and asked him if I could guest post here at BloggingTips and has humble has he was, his reply was a simple – yes. It was easier than I thought, and now look at us

Whoop, there we have it.

Just 7 Simple Steps that will see you to better, stronger and more loyal readership.

Perhaps I should have stated this before, but ultimately the loyalty of your readers depend on the quality of your content. If you truly aren’t passionate about what you are writing for – its highly unlikely your readers will take interest. So once you establish a honest writing regime – then apply these steps and you will almost definitely see an increase in the number of your readers.

Written by Janith from Blogussion
Posted on January 26th, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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