Increasing your RSS Subscribers is one of the most important things that a blogger needs to do. Not only is it a way to sell more ads, it also is a big statement about your blog. Typically your RSS subscribers, are frequent visitors, and so the more you have, the more traffic you have coming to your site. However, getting RSS subscribers sounds a lot harder then it actually is. People are surprisingly willing to subscribe, if you go about it the right way. I’ve compiled a list of strategies that I use, and I would highly recommend for you as well.

1.
    Always respond to emails.

Being available is one of the greatest encouragements to potential subscribers. If they know you actually care about them, then they are much more willing to subscribe. And also, people will subscribe just because you were nice to them, so make sure you are always polite, and try not to blow anybody off.

2.
    Display your numbers proudly

Don’t be ashamed of it, whether you have a lot, or a little, they are both good, and I will explain why. First, if you have very few people. If you actually have good content, then people don’t care how many other subscribers you have, it’s lets them feel happy because they can be one of your first groupies. If you have a lot of subscribers, then it really builds people’s confidence seeing the high number. Even if you don’t have very good articles, everybody is wondering why they have so many subscribers, and so they find themselves subscribing just because everybody else did. Either way, you win, and you don’t really lose anything. Just post good content, and you should be able to break the embarrassing point quickly.

3.
    Set up a popup

I’ve heard very mixed reviews about this, but I’ve never heard a review that said it didn’t work. Every article I’ve read about it, said it gave them great success. The only complaints were it’s annoying, but I mean, very few people would not read a blog simply because of a popup, just make sure there’s an easy way to exit out of it, otherwise you Will get lots of complaints.

4.
    Write Good Content

This is very straight forward, if you want to know about this, read this article on how to write a good blog post. Don’t waste people’s time, with articles that don’t help anybody, be original, informative, and helpful and you’ll be fine.

5.
    Have a Subscribe Button

And place it as far up on the page as you can. Do not hide it at the bottom of your side bar, advertise it, and make it obvious.

6.
    Have an Email Option as well

RSS subscribing is still relatively new. A surprisingly large amount of people don’t know what it is, so make sure people can do it through email. More then half of my subscribers are through email, so make sure you have that option as well. Also, have that high up on your sidebar as well.

7.
    Reciprocal Commenting

Every time you get a comment, return to that person’s site and comment back. Let them know you appreciate their visit, not by thanking them. But by returning the favor, I bet you they’ll come back. 

8.
    Write lots of Guest Posts

This is really important, because it’s a great way to advertise your site. Choose similar sites, with a similar audience, and it’ll be an incredible way to get new subscribers.

9.
    Make a Huge Subscribe button

Check out this site for an example. That guy has almost 4,500 subscribers, not a bad total,  I think he knows what he’s talking about. Now don’t make it that big, but the one I have now is too small, yes I admit that. Make it at least 125×125, and stretch it as far as you dare. 

10.
    Ask people to Subscribe

It sounds dumb, but people will really respond if you ask them to. Now you have to do it indirectly, don’t just write a post saying SUBSCRIBE!! with a big button in the post. The way I do it, is to ask at the end of every post saying, if you liked this post please subscribe. Short, sweet, and gets the point across.

11.
    Have all the Subscribe options

If you go into your feedburner account, there are a lot of different options. Make sure you have them all checked; you would not want to be preventing your readers from subscribing because you didn’t support their type of RSS reader.

11.
    RSS feed Vs. Url Feed

Now I have yet to test this out, but I’ve read that this works in a lot of posts. When you comment on a blog, instead of doing the url of your blog, do the url of your feed. If you have the full post option from Feedburner, then they will essentially be at your site anyway, and this way it’s easier for them to subscribe. I can’t recommend this as I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like it could really work. I’ll try it and let you know my results at some point.

12.
    Participate on forums

Discussions, forums, message-boards, call them whatever you like, these are great ways to get subscribers and traffic. It’s like fast paced blog commenting. Just get in a forum your knowledgeable about, and related to your site, and just be very intelligent and help people out, and then refer them to your blog for more details. If your on the right forum, then this is a great way to grow your blog.

13.
    Comment on like-minded blogs

This is similar to the guest posting thing, but this is available all the time. Start doing the rounds in commenting, and visit similar blogs. Comment, help people out, you don’t even have to refer them, because your name will be a link, so you don’t have to be spammy. Just help people out, and you’ll be helping your site out as well. 

These are a few myths that I want to debunk. There are lots of ways that people say you can increase your subscribers, and these are popular. But don’t fall for them, they have very little if any real effect.

14.
    Don’t waste time with Feed exchange sites

There are lots of sites promising to advertise your site, for example Rsshugger.com I fell for that site when it first came out. To join you had to link to their site, and write a post about them. I was desperate for new subscribers so I gave it a shot. I think I referred about 150 visits to their site, and they gave me 3 total visits, and who knows if any of those even subscribed. And I was one of the tops sites for a while, because of all the traffic I gave them. Don’t waste your time with these!

15.
    Don’t use Feed Directories

These are a waste, and they really don’t help you any. It’s not worth the time it takes to put your site in them, and all you get in return is one more subscriber from the site. Very rarely will they ever actually refer anybody to your site, so don’t waste your time with them.

16.
    Don’t do feed exchanges

These are also a waste. What’s the point of a subscriber if you are both only doing it for the extra number? This is called rss faking. And no only is it a dishonest way to advertise your site, it doesn’t really help you out any either. One more person isn’t going to make that much of a difference, and even if you do a lot of these, you will be adding people who probably don’t read your site anyway.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my free RSS feed, for more tips on how to blog. And please consider stumbling this post, so more can benefit from it.
   
   

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Conversion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.