The One Year Millionaire

Hey Everyone… if you’ve been keeping up to date with the ‘ONE YEAR MILLIONAIRE‘ then you might have already read an older post that I’ve written about the importance of RSS Subscribers and what they can do for your blog! Check out ‘5 Simple Ways to Increase RSS Subscribers‘! Today I am going to expand on that topic a little more and list 10 things that anyone with a decent blog can do that will help increase RSS Subscribers!

These days it seems that bloggers everywhere are given more authority if they have a higher RSS Feed Count than the next. It seems that a lot of individuals in the blogging world and Internet Marketing Niche are putting less importance on Alexa rank and more on Technorati and RSS Subscribers!

The reason is because your RSS Count is a beautiful indicator of how well your blog is doing and how much potential it has! When your RSS numbers go up it means that people value your content! No one will subscribe to your RSS if they don’t want to come back to your site!

So here are ten things that you should do or at least consider before deciding that you’ll never increase your RSS Count:

1. Make your Feed Icon Noticeable!
   A lot of surfers won’t know that the option of RSS Feed is available unless you slap it in their faces! This is one of the reasons why a lot of great websites have low RSS numbers! The best way to show users that your Feed is available is to place a big icon in the header of your page or somewhere at the top where surfers will see it easily!
2. Publish Great Content.
   I know that this is something that is kind of common sense.. but you have to be posting great content on your site if you want people to subscribe to your feed! If someone comes across a site with RSS Feed Icons easily visible and finds that the content doesn’t provide useful information… why would he/she want to subscribe to the RSS Feed?
3. Show your Count!
   Show off your RSS Count! Show your readers that other people consider your information useful! I don’t suggest that web sites with low RSS Count show their numbers because it might end up back firing! Showing a low count could discourage readers from subscribing! If your website is relatively new like mine it is kind of hard to have a huge RSS Count, but you should typically start showing your feed count at the 200-300 mark!
4. Submit to RSS Directories.
   A lot of blogs overlook submitting their feed to RSS Directories. I don’t understand why, because I am sure that a lot of these bloggers spend time submitting to blog directories, article directories and search engines. This goes along the same lines except it is specifically for RSS Feeds!
5. Use Pod Casts!
   This is one of the growing trend among bloggers in the blogosphere! Instead of posting traditional articles all the time… offer video/audio posts! For some reason it has a much greater affect on viewers than traditional web based writing! It is probably because the surfer gets to be more familiarized with who you are (it is much more up close and personal). All of the blogs I’ve seen doing this have been pretty successful… but it does take a little bit of work. I’m sure that it is well worth it!
6. Respond to your E-Mails!
   Would you take the 30 seconds to subscribe to an RSS Feed belonging to a website who’s author doesn’t respond his E-Mails? If a surfer doesn’t feel like a webmaster cares much about his/her needs then he/she might not want to take the time to subscribe to a feed. I know personally that responding to all your E-Mails can be a long task and take a bit of time… but if you do it is worth it because you could gain much more then a few RSS Subscribers! Make sure that when you respond to your E-Mails you include something like “.. Thank you for visiting my site… if you would like to stay updated then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.. ” a few little words in an E-Mail can be a lot more powerful than no words at all.
7. Post Often.
   The reason that RSS Subscription is available is to make sure that readers don’t miss a new post! A good way to give them a reason to subscribe would be to post often enough that they would feel that they need a reminder so that they do not miss out on new content from your site!
8. E-Mail Subscription Option.
   Give people the option of subscribing to your feed through E-Mail. This means that they will receive an E-Mail whenever there is a new post on your site! The great thing about this is that since feed numbers tend to fluxuate… the amount of E-Mail subscriptions that you have tends to stabilize it. It gives you a flat number that you know for sure are going to be exposed to your online efforts!
9. Remind your Readers!
   Sometimes acquiring new Feed Subscribers can be a difficult task because a lot of readers may overlook it! One way to make sure that they can’t overlook it is to remind them at the end of each of your posts!
10. Offer Something in Return.
    A great way to have people sign up to your RSS Feed is if you offer them something that they can only get if they subscribe to your feed! One things that I have noticed is that a lot of web sites in the Internet Marketing Niche offer free informational E-Books in return for subscribing to their RSS Feed. This is a guaranteed way to increase your feed count!

Try to avoid faking your RSS Count at all costs! Although a few people have posted articles about how it can be profitable to fake your count to increase your actual count, I think that as more research has been made on the subject that it is a bad idea in the long run. There is nothing worse than being exposed as a fake. If you have a couple hundred RSS Subscribers then your posts would generally have a lot of comments. Don’t post a count of 400 when you only have 15! This could only damage your online reputation!

One last thing to avoid are some services that are out on the internet which claim to increase RSS Subscribers. This is a service that you pay for and receive a certain amount of subscribers. I am sure that they will deliver on the subscribers… but are they quality subscribers? Most of these services simply sign up to your feed with hundreds of different email addresses. Your feed reader will count each one as a RSS Subscriber because they don’t actually have to read the emails to be counted! This is really pointless because it is not adding any ‘actual’ real visitors to your site who will return and read your content.

If you liked this post please consider signing up to the One Year Millionaire’s RSS E-Mail Subscription so you will be notified by E-Mail whenever we update our site! Also feel free to leave comments, questions or feedback… I am always available to help, and I will do my best to answer any questions to the best of my ability!

In the next issue of the ‘ONE YEAR MILLIONAIRE‘ I am going to talk about Article Marketing and how it can increase traffic to your website!