If you want to increase subscribers for your blog , it is one of the best ways of doing it. But a point to be kept in mind here is that an RSS feed is much harder to monetize than a blog . For the same number of people visiting a blog and an RSS feed the income generated by the blog may be 20 times more than generated by the RSS feed.
Despite very low income , you should still try an increase your RSS subscriptions. One of the important reasons being RSS represents genuine reader base, and anything done to increase your subscribers will definitely increase your blog in the long run. Another reason to increase your RSS subscriber base is that some ad networks like ReviewMe , take your RSS subscribers into account to determine the price , the more number of RSS subscribers you have the more you would get paid.
Offering a Full feed definitely helps.
To increase your subscriber base in the long run , you should offer a full feed. Many RSS readers wont sign up for a feed until its full . Use your RSS to give your readers an enhanced reading experience . Never use RSS as a traffic builder to your post . There are many people who use this method. I find it very cheap method to get traffic to your post and one that I advise you to avoid totally. I am not offering any RSS feed to my readers right now because at this moment I don’t have sufficient content on my blog.
Never show your RSS count if it is too small.
FeedBurner provides a nice widget which you can use on your blog , it shows the number of RSS readers on your blog. The number displayed represents the number of people that accessed your blog the day before. Personally I advise you to not show the subscriber count until it reaches 30.
A bit of human psychology is involved here . People in general like to play safe . They would not subscribe to a blog with very few readers, even if the blog is very good. It is best to not display your RSS subscribers until you have sufficient number of subscribers that you can proudly display. The bigger the number of subscribers , the more chances are that new readers will subscribe to it . Smaller the number , less chances of readers subscribing to it. If you really want to tackle this hurdle , you may display someone else’s RSS feed count to get the subscribers. Nothing is fair in this world but that’s one way to get the attraction of your audience.
Be sure that readers see your RSS button.
The RSS button should necessarily be placed near the top of your blog preferably on the top left corner which is considered to be the hot spot in advertising . If you can’t place it there make sure you place it at a place where it is easily visible without scrolling . You should let your readers know that you have a RSS feed and for that you need your RSS button to be visible. If you are providing a full feed to your subscribers then you must label your RSS button as full feed RSS to let your readers know that they can read all your content from the feed.
Ask your readers to subscribe.
You may ask your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed if they liked your blog. You can do so by by adding a line at the end of your post like “If you liked my post , please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS ”.Instead of doing this you may edit your template files , so that you may not have to write this for every post that you publish. In WordPress you need to edit index.php file if you want your request to show on the home page of your blog.
Advertising options for your RSS feed.
The best way to make money from your full RSS feed is to ask your readers to visit your blog. You may use Google Adsense for feeds or Text link Ads Feedvertising. Google adsense for RSS is the best way to monetize your blog . The ads may be CPM or CPC based , but in any case you can make sufficient amount from your RSS feed.Offering a Full feed definitely helps.
To increase your subscriber base in the long run , you should offer a full feed. Many RSS readers wont sign up for a feed until its full . Use your RSS to give your readers an enhanced reading experience . Never use RSS as a traffic builder to your post . There are many people who use this method. I find it very cheap method to get traffic to your post and one that I advise you to avoid totally. I am not offering any RSS feed to my readers right now because at this moment I don’t have sufficient content on my blog.
Never show your RSS count if it is too small.
FeedBurner provides a nice widget which you can use on your blog , it shows the number of RSS readers on your blog. The number displayed represents the number of people that accessed your blog the day before. Personally I advise you to not show the subscriber count until it reaches 30.
A bit of human psychology is involved here . People in general like to play safe . They would not subscribe to a blog with very few readers, even if the blog is very good. It is best to not display your RSS subscribers until you have sufficient number of subscribers that you can proudly display. The bigger the number of subscribers , the more chances are that new readers will subscribe to it . Smaller the number , less chances of readers subscribing to it. If you really want to tackle this hurdle , you may display someone else’s RSS feed count to get the subscribers. Nothing is fair in this world but that’s one way to get the attraction of your audience.
Be sure that readers see your RSS button.
The RSS button should necessarily be placed near the top of your blog preferably on the top left corner which is considered to be the hot spot in advertising . If you can’t place it there make sure you place it at a place where it is easily visible without scrolling . You should let your readers know that you have a RSS feed and for that you need your RSS button to be visible. If you are providing a full feed to your subscribers then you must label your RSS button as full feed RSS to let your readers know that they can read all your content from the feed.
Ask your readers to subscribe.
You may ask your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed if they liked your blog. You can do so by by adding a line at the end of your post like “If you liked my post , please consider subscribing to my full feed RSS ”.Instead of doing this you may edit your template files , so that you may not have to write this for every post that you publish. In WordPress you need to edit index.php file if you want your request to show on the home page of your blog.
Advertising options for your RSS feed.
Text link Ads Feedvertising are similar to text link ads for a blog. Instead of buying a link on a blog , the advertiser buys a link in your feed. The pricing system is very straight forward , so there is no need to worry about variable CPM rates and / or click fraud. Remember Feedvertising is available for WordPress 2.0 or higher.
