The main reason why people subscribe to blog feeds can be explained in one sentence: Readers subscribe to blogs when they provide an informational or entertainment value so great that it would be a loss to not subscribe to it.
People are self-serving most of the time. They monitor content to be informed, educated and entertained. We are all consumers.
Visitors may also subscribe in order to be updated on your content, in order to use it as a networking tool or a source of inspiration for their own articles
In any case, people subscribe to a blog when the author or his/her opinions add and not subtract from the reader: The attention given to your site must be reciprocated or returned in the form of short and long term benefits derived from your content.
There’s a lot to do and not to do when it comes to increasing feed subscriptions. Without proper statistical testing, it’s difficult to measure the real ROI from feed link placements and incentive-based schemes. These factors are usually circumstantial as well because they depend on factors like design, niche and voice.
My advice for increasing feed subscribers: Minimize noise. Maximize signal. Always create content relevant to your audience’s interests. Cut down on me-too or meaningless news posts. Create more unique, thought provoking content with original analysis. Don’t be afraid to share your honest opinions.
One more thing: learn how to market your blog. This is incredibly important. A true readership develops when you create low-noise, high value content and promote it to the right people with enough influence to not only send over targeted traffic but improve the reputation of your site. And that’s all there is to it.
Dosh Dosh Has 10,000 Feed Subscribers: Thanks Everyone!
When I started Dosh Dosh a year ago, I decided to conduct a sociological experiment. I wanted to know one thing: How many people will actually subscribe to my blog if I don’t display my feed count or provide incentives for subscription?
Apparently over 10,000 people. The subscription level for Dosh Dosh has increased steadily over the course of a year. Instead of talking about what I did, let’s take a look at some the things I didn’t do or have:
- No Feedcount. I did not display my feed count on Dosh Dosh for its entire lifespan and yesterday afternoon was the first time I put up my feed numbers. My feed count was also deactivated until I reached 8000 subscribers, which means no one could discover how many subscribers I had until that point.
- No Guest Posting. I have not written any guest posts for any site with the purpose of driving traffic back to my blog. I only wrote for Dosh Dosh.
- No Contests/Projects. Never held any contests, group writing projects, blog carnivals or competitions at all on this blog.
- No Advertising. Not a single cent was spent on buying ads to promote Dosh Dosh. Every single visitor that comes to this blog is organic.
- No Incentives. Apart from the content itself, I have never offered any incentives to encourage subscriptions. This means no ebooks, free reviews or gifts of any sort.
- No Guest bloggers. No one else has ever written any articles on this blog.
- No Digg frontpages. A long time ago, an article reached the Digg frontpage and was buried in a few minutes. After that, all content from Dosh Dosh has been automatically buried by Digg’s internal system (a plausible theory).
- No Frequent Posting. For the later part of Dosh Dosh’s lifespan, I wrote infrequently, sometimes only publishing one or two articles in an entire week.
Most of the points above are practiced by most bloggers concerned with their feed subscriber numbers. At the very least, bloggers will display their feed count as a form of social proof to encourage other subscribers to sign up.
I deliberately refrained from displaying the feed count in order to determine how many people will subscribe even though there is a lack of input from other readers. I didn’t guest post, advertise or provide incentives because I wanted to get a rough numerical estimation on the size of my ‘real’ feed audience.
What does this prove, if anything? That it’s very possible to get a decent readership even if you don’t overtly go after subscribers by purchasing ads or providing incentives. Creating excellent content and getting exposure for it through the right influencers and platforms is very important, in my opinion.
I’ve seen some bloggers guest blogging actively while getting on the Digg frontpage and offering ebook incentives for subscription. Some of them used to have more subscribers than me but not any more. I and others outgrew them.
Incentives and other gimmicks aren’t going to get you very far if you don’t know how to consistently put out content that differentiates your site. They certainly aren’t useless but you don’t need them to grow either. Once again, thanks everyone!
Want more information on promoting your content? Check out my previous articles on how to get links from popular blogs and the importance of a prospect list.
For more blog marketing tips, subscribe to Dosh Dosh today.
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