Get Writing, Get Readers

Want more newsfeed readers for your blog? Of course, you do! Everyone does, despite the Feedburner myth and proclamations from Copyblogger that feedcounts are bogus.

So how do you get more feed subscribers?

Friend of the blog William Gunn tells us the basics: “If your desire is to increase the number of feed subscribers, you need to get greater exposure to people who use feed readers. I wouldn’t expect that you’ll have many people who don’t know what a feed is begin to use one at your request. I think the approach used by almost all major media of providing a subscribe button with a little “What is this?” link to an explanation such as that provided by the linked article at SixApart explaining what subscribing means is the best approach, and you needn’t mention RSS or Atom or any of the underlying technology. Subscribe by email is another good option.”

Mike Keliher who blogs at UnJournalism echoes that last sentiment: “Offer your readers a way to subscribe to your RSS feed via email rather than a feed reader,” he says, “Many services can pull this off, usually for free. I use FeedBurner for my RSS feeds, and this functionality (RSS via email) is built right in. It’s priceless.”

Meanwhile, Deepak Singh, Business Development Manager at Amazon Web Services, is not sure he’s ever suffered from feed count envy. “To me, the ultimate n00b RSS readers are iGoogle and My Yahoo,” he says, “There, people get feeds without really knowing that it’s a feed. Same goes for smart bookmarks in Firefox and Safari. So, perhaps you want to make a google gadget, or have add to My Yahoo or add to Google buttons which makes adding the feed one-click or two-click affairs. You could also try a syndication service like BlogBurst. For a general audience, it does provide some reach.” Jason Hullot, owner of Speedie Consultants, also suggests submitting to blog directories as a matter of course.

Christopher Masiello says that social media is one avenue bloggers hoping to boost their feedcount should explore. “Try using some social bookmarking sites to boost your readership,” he says, “If more people see it, a portion of them may subscribe and thus boost your subscriptions. Try StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Del.icio.us, and a few others and your readers and subscriptions should climb.”

Sherry Dedman uses a relatively conventional approach that works for a regularly updated site: “I added above my RSS by the email box that by signing up, visitors would get an email alert every time something is added to the list. Then I make a blog post every time I update the list.”

Technology consultant Ted Wallingford, of BTStrategy suggests that multimedia is the way forward. “For one of my clients, a newspaper publisher, we creates a simple 5-minute video showing folks how to add the feed to a cell phone and to Outlook, etc., and kind of go over the “hidden” features of the site that would yield more mindshare and traffic for the publisher if people took advantage of the them.”

Dawud Miracle suggests an incentive approach to growing your feedcount. “You likely understand who your readers are, what they need and why they’re reading your blog,” he says, “So now, create a short ebook or some other eproduct that adds a specific value to your reader’s lives or solves a specific problem they’re facing. And only deliver the product to people who sign up for your feed. Some will signup and then unsubscribe but you’ve put something of value in their hands that can/will lead them back to your blog. One last thing, give them permission to share the incentive product.” Interestingly, I tried this feed reader easter eggs approach previously and saw some good gains at the time.

But, I’ll leave the final word to Peter Herndon, Programmer Analyst, at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC, who told me he’s coming at newsfeed count from a purist perspective. “I’d say you shouldn’t promote your newsfeed. People read your (or any) blog because the content is interesting and compelling. If you write useless drivel, you won’t have an audience. Conversely, if you write good content, you will have an audience. Promoting your newsfeed is more-or-less irrelevant in the face of that overarching concern.” He points out that the site’s newsfeed is nothing more than a content delivery vehicle. “As such, make sure that you have a meta link to your feed in the head of each page, so that browser auto-discovery works, and make sure that you have a paragraph or two somewhere on your site mentioning the various feeds you host, and leave it at that.”

Herndon stresses that actually promoting newsfeeds is a waste of time. “Promoting your own personal brand is much more important,” he says, “Making sure that folks in your field recognize you (and your blog) as a source of expert information is a better strategy than promoting any particular method of content delivery. The way to do that is to write frequently and cogently about your field, both on your own blog and in comments on the blogs of others, and to make sure that the system in place for finding you (i.e., Google) is aware of how you want to project yourself.”

In the meantime, anyone with ideas on how to boost newsfeed readers might like to add their tips here or alternatively enter the building RSS group writing contest here.