Why people don’t subscribe to your RSS feed
Having a large RSS readership is probably the most reliable indicator
of a blogs success. The reason RSS is such a reliable metric is that
building a loyal subscriber base is the hardest task in internet
marketing, even harder than launching a new site.
There are lots of blogs such as ProBlogger and Shoemoney that just
seem to attract RSS subscribers in such huge numbers that it can be
quite demoralising to new bloggers. Over the past few weeks I’ve been
studying my own RSS subscription habits to try and understand why
people subscribe to RSS feeds.
The first point I noticed was that out of the hundred or so feeds I
subscribe to there are only about 5 that I found using social media.
As a Digg user I visit tens of sites every day that offer RSS feeds
and have never bothered to subscribe to any of them. Assuming most
Digg users are the same it’s not surprising that hitting the Digg
front page doesn’t do much to increase your subscriber levels.
It is also very unlikely that you will get many subscribers from
people finding your site in the Google search results, especially if
your blog is aimed at web savvy readers.
The main conclusion to be drawn from my subscription habits is that
the vast majority of blogs I subscribe to were found by following a
link from another blogger in my daily reading list. There is no better
blog promotion method than having another well known blog or website
write about your site in a positive light.
Armed with this information it seems the best way forward is to
somehow make sure that popular bloggers write about your site and link
to you. Clearly this is easier said than done, especially in a
saturated industry such as internet marketing.
Blogs in other industries (gadgets, for example) attract RSS
subscribers and links far more easily. Larger gadget blogs are much happier
to spread link love as they normally just credit the source at the end
of the article rather than actively pointing out a story from another
blog.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 6 comments below, or add your own!
You can guest post on the search blogs like the engine journal or marketing pilgrim and a few other blogs.
I’ve had success with giving off-topic but well developed story ideas to popular bloggers in that niche in the hope they might give a link to me for credit of the idea.
No need to wait to be interviewed… You can ask your friends if they would like to interview you. (You can even supply your own questions)
I gave Shoemoney a $5 Tiki and he gave me a link. The best $5 I ever spent. I received a great response from other local webmasters after he posted.
http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/09/04/the-god-of-money-thanks-hawaii-seo/
You can also comment on other blogs and add to the conversation. If I don\’t get at least a few visitors from this comment, I\’ll be very surprised.
Wow. Cool way to get a link.
Blog rolls are surely a good way to receive traffic to your site, and perhaps blog subscribers. Personally I subscribe to new blogs based on the content, and update frequency. While I’ll end up subscribing to a blog purely because it has great content, I may delete it if it only updates once every month or two. Content however is the number one reason I read blog entries, so high quality writing on diverse subjects is incredibly important. Having many new subscribers is great as long as they keep coming back, and don’t end up unsubcribing.
It’s interesting to think about the blogs that I subscribe to and how I found them. One big way and the way I think you are talking about is to find an insightful post on another persons blog and then follow his link back to his site.
I hang around the digital point forums alot too and will follow catchy headlines in peoples RSS feeds that show along with their posts. Does this automatically lead to a subscribtion – no.
Usually it takes a couple of posts of value ie.. follow link to site read article that is good, click link to archived article and it is good and then BAM subscribe.
Maybe the formula is reading a couple of quality posts because in the case of following a link from another blog, I’ll often subscribe just if the first post is good. I’ve followed the link from the other blog where the reply made it worth my checking out what else the person had to say on their own blog.
You’re so absolutely right Patrick. Even though my blog is brand new I have found that visiting other people’s blogs and making relevant quality comments are doing wonders for my visitor stats and RSS subscribers.
I am a big fan of doing reviews of other people’s blogs and I would like to offer a review of your site if you’re interested. Currently my contact form is out of order but if you leave me a comment (e.g. in my About Me page) I’ll get started doing the review.