Comments
This article is part of a Group Writing Project about Building RSS Numbers.
I recently achieved the milestone of having 150 subscribers (I’m still hanging out in that area). In reaching that, I realize that many bloggers use Blogger to host their blogs and FeedBurner for their RSS syndication. That’s a good combination (I much prefer WordPress, but Blogger can be simpler to set up).
This post will serve as a simple tutorial to allow people in this situation to double their subscriber count overnight. If not overnight, then quickly to say the least.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the bloggers who have this setup seem to have low subscriber counts. I noticed that Learn Me Good is still hanging out around 30ish feeds each time I check it. It has been that way since I first discovered his blog. I checked it out in Google Reader and realized that I was subscribed to his Blogger feed rather than the FeedBurner feed. I have a strong feeling that there are a handful of Blogger users out there who will find this little trick extraordoinarily useful and personally validating as well.
How do we do it?
- Follow the steps in this simple Quick Start guide from FeedBurner.
- Write a new post on your blog informing readers of the change and asking them to confirm that they are subscribed to the FeedBurner feed (this is not necessary, but it will encourage casual readers to subscribe anyway).
- Sit back and wait a few days and see the numbers dramatically increase!
A few more tips to help increase your reader numbers:
- Post remarkable content
- Advertise your RSS subscriber numbers (or not…but don’t put a fake FeedBurner chicklet on your site)
- Make email subscriptions available
- Encourage readers to subscribe to the email feed, forward useful articles to friends, and invite friends to subscribe (even if they don’t read blogs)
- Submit posts to blog carnivals and hot them
- Link to lots of other blogs
- Invite guest posts
- Write guest posts
- Celebrate feed subscription milestones
Tags
Did you like this article?
Share the knowledge!
Related Articles
My recent tutorial, Double Your FeedBurner RSS Numbers Overnight, has been featured as one of 71 tutorials in Daniel's Blog Writing Project at Daily Blog Tips. Daily Blog ...
Thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed. You people are awesome! I want to challenge you to invite one person you know who is either a great teacher or an aspirin ...
For reasons beyond my control, my blogging time will be extraordinarily limited this week (lots of concerts and exhaustion has begun to catch up on me). For these reasons, ...
The most popular post I made to the blog in the entire month of August was The State of the Blog: 08/01/07. I glanced through it again today and was impressed by the chang ...
Thanks for the mention, Joel.
A Nice compilation here and very helpful.
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Joel-
Quick question. If I already am hosting a blog on blogger, then I should have FeedBurner as my RSS feed by default and not need to do your tutorial? But if I’m hosting a wordpress blog, your tutorial would be the way to go since it is not a FeedBuner RSS?? Does that make sense?
Thanks for any clarification you can provide for my RSS challenged mind.
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Ken: Not true. I just checked out your blog and the default feed is the one that runs through Blogger. Both are owned by Google, but the numbers of the subscribers are not included. The FeedBurner page that I linked to is specifically for ensuring that your Blogger feeds all run through FeedBurner. Enjoy! :)
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Will have to check it out for my blogger blog
Flag this comment as inappropriate
I think mine is set up to go through feedburner now. Not sure if my subscribers will double overnight though. I guess we’ll see tomorrow! :)
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Wow, talk about cool! Learn Me Good’s numbers went from 26 to 114 overnight. That is more than a 430% increase. I guess this stuff can work!
Flag this comment as inappropriate
DAY-IMMMM!!!!
I just got home, and I saw your comment before I actually checked my own blog, and at first I thought you were kidding! Although I really did was direct the blogger feed towards feedburner. There’s no way to do this through the control panel on blogspot, under the site feed option.
Good call!
Either that, or I had a ton of people sign up overnight!
Flag this comment as inappropriate
OK, you are on my favorite list Joel :)
Flag this comment as inappropriate
You are really rockin’ over here! It’s been a while since I’ve been by, and I am so happy to see you enjoying some success!
Flag this comment as inappropriate
I have no idea how people ’subscribe’ to me, or how many do, but I know some do. How do I figure the rest out?
Jonathan
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Jonathan,
I just found The Edublogger and it has some great tips on this very thing.
+ Adding a RSS Feed from Feedburner To Your Blog
+ How To Add An Email Subscription To Your Blog
Flag this comment as inappropriate
Thanks for the entry in the contest.
Stumbled this for you:
http://groupwriting.stumbleupon.com/review/23284191/
Flag this comment as inappropriate