So You Want To Teach?

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?

1. Follow the steps in this simple Quick Start guide from FeedBurner.
2. 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).
3. Sit back and wait a few days and see the numbers dramatically increase!

A few more tips to help increase your reader numbers:

1. Post remarkable content
2. Advertise your RSS subscriber numbers (or not…but don’t put a fake FeedBurner chicklet on your site)
3. Make email subscriptions available
4. 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)
5. Submit posts to blog carnivals and hot them
6. Link to lots of other blogs
7. Invite guest posts
8. Write guest posts
9. Celebrate feed subscription milestones