This is a guest post by Justin Brooke, author of SEO Lies: A Book About SEO Truths. Justin has helped everyone from home business start-ups to 9 figure earning CEO’s, so you can rest assured he’s got a wallet-fattening tip for you too. You can contact Justin on Facebook here.
If you have a blog then no doubt you’re trying to get more readers to subscribe…
You’ve also found out that getting an RSS subscriber is not the easiest thing in the world. Even with a giant red flashing arrow pointing at your RSS feed link, some people still don’t know how to sign-up.
Evolution of RSS Subscription Strategies
The average blogger usually just has a little orange icon that says “subscribe to my feed.” Which barely works and most of their subscribers are the few who read lots of blogs and just naturally understood what to do and why.
These readers are few and far between, unless of course you are writing a blog about blogging.
The next step up is the advanced blogger who calls attention to their RSS button with either a more attractive, but still recognizable, RSS icon and/or some kind of eye attracting graphic (arrows, pointing fingers, sexy women). If this blogger is really smart they’ve even included a benefit and call to action.
Sample of Advanced RSS Strategies
You’ll see the sample here to the left from ViperChill.com an awesome blog about viral marketing and website traffic generation.
Not to take anything at all away from ViperChill, which has over 7,000 RSS subscribers, but this still isn’t how a ninja would get RSS subscribers.
Most people stop at this point when it comes to getting RSS subscribers, but it’s not where the most elite bloggers stop.
If you go to any of the biggest blogs you’ll almost always find these three things…
- An article they wrote dedicated to teaching readers what RSS is and why they should be using it to read their blog.
- A contest where getting more RSS readers was one of the main goals.
- Some kind of free gift offer in exchange for the reader subscribing to their RSS feed.
The Ninja’s RSS Subscription Strategies
A blog lives and dies with it’s reader count. No readers, no blog (unless you like talking to yourself). Which is why the most elite bloggers in the world focus so heavily on getting RSS subscribers.
If you want to be like the ninja then I suggest you add these 5 strategies to your blog…
Educate Your Readers
Depending on the niche you are blogging in most people have no clue what RSS means. Let alone do they use an RSS reader. It’s like the Pareto Principle, 80% of your readers most likely know nothing about RSS and don’t use RSS readers and 20% know RSS well and use readers daily.
The reason getting RSS ubscribers is so hard to so many bloggers is because they are only fishing in the 20% pond. If you want to see your subscriptions take off you need to start fishing in the 80% pond as well.
By teaching your readers what RSS is and the benefits of them using it you’ll open your RSS subscription up to an entirely new and larger portion of the market.
Most people know about bookmarking a website and thats probably what a lot of your readers are doing.
Show them that RSS readers are like using bookmarks but they let you know when something new has arrived instead of having to guess. Remind them of how many bookmarks they most likely have but forget about and never use. Tell them how reading your latest blog posts will help their life and thats why they should use RSS instead of bookmarking.
To help you out there’s a GREAT video on Youtube called RSS in Plain English. It’s what I use to teach my own readers the advantages of subscribing to blogs via RSS.
Use The Power of Contest Marketing
Of all the strategies I’ve ever used to get more RSS subscribers nothing has brought in as many and is such a short time than running a blog contest. This works by offering some sort of prize and then telling your readers to perform a few simple tasks in order to “register” to win the prize.
You’d be surprised what people are willing to do in order to win a prize. I’ve had people write articles for me, make videos, and even build me websites in order to try and win my contests. However, things like “leave a comment” or “subscribe to our RSS” or “tweet this link” are more standard contest tasks.
Add Some Bait To The Hook
Let’s face it the #1 way to get anyone to do anything is to pay them to do it, right? Doesn’t have to be money either, in fact not everyone is money driven.
Fishing and marketing have a lot in common, and to catch fish sometimes you need to find the right bait. Same thing when trying to get RSS subscribers. Think about what the #1 problem your readers face, how can you help them with that?
Maybe it’s a video tutorial or an ebook or maybe it’s a coupon? Whatever it is, you can offer them to get your solution to their problem in exchange for subscribing to your RSS. All you need is a plug-in for your blog called Feedvertising.
Watch a video tutorial of how to install and use Feedvertising here.
Once you have this plug-in installed on your blog you can offer a link or password that only your RSS subscribers will see. If you offer the right gift and make sure all your visitors see your offer you’ll see your RSS counts skyrocketing almost instantly. The Feedvertising plug-in also helps for your contests to prove that someone actually subscribed to your RSS.
Tell them they need to leave a comment with a certain “code word” that is only visible to your RSS subscribers via the Feedvertising plugin.
Simply Blog Daily
If you take a look at blogs of all sizes you’ll notice some common traits. The most popular blogs in the world post 20 – 40 articles per day. Then the next level down post daily and finally the smaller guys post once a week or whenever they want.
People are starving for content, especially high quality niche specific content. If you can consistently post daily you will see rewards beyond most other marketing strategies available.
People will subscribe to your blog because they can’t keep up, they’ll want to read at their own pace.
Google will treat your blog special because of all the value you are creating.
Other bloggers will link to your posts as you talk about different topics that relate to their posts.
If you adveritse your products on your blog you’ll start making sales as your readers begin trusting you from reading your articles.
I can’t think of a better “all-in-one” way of marketing your business than to simply blog everyday. Your posts don’t always have to be long like this one either. You can find an image, video, or other resource and just post 3 – 5 sentences of your opinion about that item. Even just a link to another blog post or website and your reasons for liking it.
It works so well that not only am I personally blogging 4x per week, I’m also guest blogging on other peoples blogs!
With that said I hope you’ve liked this post and found it personally valuable. I’ll be sticking around for the next few days to answer any questions in the comments below. Please say hi, share your opinion, add a tip, or ask a question below – I’d love to chat 
Go Bigger,
Justin Brooke
P.S. “Justin is a highly respected and educated Internet Marketer… he know’s hist stuff! follow him and learn heaps! Trust me… you’ll be glad you did!” -#Davidbeking
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