0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions
It’s all about growth. Today I took a look at the lifehack.org feed stats at Feedburner (I love metric), I realize lifehack.org has came from a long way since 2005.
It took around 1.5 years to grow from 0 to 12,000 subscribers, but I am pretty happy with the progress. Put a ruler from the start of the graph to the end of the graph, it’s a straight line which shows a pretty steady growth:
That’s the beauty of RSS feed. If a web site adds value to its readers, and its feed gives enough materials for user to read, readers will keep the RSS subscription and keep coming back for more.
Let me share number of ways which I learned during these two years on RSS feeds. You could grow your RSS subscriptions from 0 to 12,000 as well.
Full Feed instead of Partial Feed. RSS feed is a way of notification, but it is not attractive enough to be just notifying readers for new posts. The feed entry needs to give something readers can read. You must give some special privileges to the regular readers. Save their time by reading your posts on the feed. I love full feed, and I am holding back myself on subscribing to partial feeds.
Invite readers to subscribe your feed. Promote it in your site. Provide an easy way to subscribe the feed. Having the small little feed icon on the location bar in the browser does not cut it.
Content is still the king for RSS feed. Similar to the first point, what’s your reason to subscribe a RSS feed? I subscribe a feed because usually on my initial visit on the site, I found out the site’s content is great and I am planning to come back for more. I wanted to keep track of the site for more good content. Content is still the king. No attractive content, no subscription.
RSS is the way to keep regular readers coming back for more. Frankly except number of regular sites I visit by URL (under 3 sites), I rely on my feed readers to notify me on new posts. RSS is here for generating and keeping regular readers, often it’s not for attracting newcomers.
Offer alternatives to subscribe the RSS feed. There are people who do not use a feed reader. Don’t exclude them. Give them an alternative. Use an email subscription for RSS service such as Feedblitz so that they can subscribe the feed with their email account.
Use tools to spice up the feed. Just like a web site, it needs some quick shortcuts and options for people access your site. Add an easy way to share the post entry. Put a link to your comment area. Create a link to their favorite online bookmarking system. Drop a link to digg the feed entry. Feedburner could help you with all of those.
[...] 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions - [LeonHo.com] Author: Leon Ho Posted: Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 7:51 am Tags: blogging, rss Bookmark/Share This! Leave a Reply [...]
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22 Jan 07 at 7:52 am
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22 Jan 07 at 9:37 am
[...] Leon Ho | 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions This article by Leon Ho, from lifedev.net, introduces some great tips for boosting your site’s RSS subscriber base. (tags: Blogging RSS) [...]
links for 2007-01-23 » Bill2me.com
22 Jan 07 at 10:31 pm
Leon,
I couldn’t agree more that full RSS feeds are possibly the number one reason for RSS conversions, but having an interesting niche (one that would be attractive to a vast majority) together with well-written content is, in my opinion, just as important.
Well, I got a year to try out these tips :)
Ignat Drozdov
23 Jan 07 at 12:52 am
Great RSS tips, Leon.
Your ideas inspired me to write a blog post of my own:
Mastering RSS Publishing : 9 Practical Tips at http://www.cleverclogs.org/2007/01/mastering_rss_p.html
Marjolein Hoekstra
23 Jan 07 at 10:53 am
I think full feeds possibly work better with content heavy sites. I have several image heavy photo blogs and partial feeds work just fine .. no noticeable difference when full feeds were implemented.
Maki
23 Jan 07 at 12:45 pm
12k subscribers is a great chunk for a niche like that. You should be very very happy with that.
Brad
23 Jan 07 at 6:45 pm
[...] The Path of LifeHack.org to 12,000 RSS Subscribers as it Relates to Subscriber Growth January 23rd, 2007 Leon Ho of lifehack.org reflects on the site’s growth from zero to 12,000RSS subscribers. Looking at his graph of subscribers over time, I wondered about the relationship between the growth of lifehack.org’s subscriber base versus its metrics with regards to traditional web traffic. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of lifehack.org’s subscriber growth versus traffic growth: [...]
The Path of LifeHack.org to 12,000 RSS Subscribers as it Relates to Subscriber Growth | BIT REVOLVER
23 Jan 07 at 9:09 pm
[...] 90% of my web use comes from my trusty RSS reader, NetNewsWire. It makes my life easier, and increases the chances that I’m going to come back to a good site that I might otherwise have forgotten about. — Link - (via Lifehack.org) [...]
Javen Ackerman Creative Services Blog » RSS Feeds: 6 Tips for Subscriber Success
24 Jan 07 at 12:22 am
Feedburner do provides email subscription too.
siong1987
24 Jan 07 at 3:21 am
[...] Leon Ho has published a blog post titled 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions. The post refers to the success of Lifehack that gained 12,000 RSS subscribers in 1.5 years. The broad points Leon has discussed are: [...]
How To Increase Your RSS Subscribers | Content Writing and CopyWriting Blog
24 Jan 07 at 11:53 am
I couldn’t agree more with every single one of your points. Instead of Feedblitz for e-mail subscriptions, I use Feedburner to do that too. In the end, your point #3 is the most important. Give a reason for people to keep coming back and all the other points will help fill that need.
12,000 subscribers. Why? It’s because lifehack has some great content.
Tony
24 Jan 07 at 11:41 pm
[...] * Missed this last week, but I thought I’d mention something I saw on ProBlogger and full feeds about Leon Ho’s 0 to 12000 subscribers article. I hate partial feeds. If the stuff is good I’ll read it…but I hate them. Full feeds everyone. [...]
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26 Jan 07 at 2:40 pm
[...] lifehake.org 的作者 Leon Ho 在文章“0 to 12000 rss subscribers: ways to attract more subscriptions”介绍获得更多RSS订阅的几种方法经验，通过图表的统计数据表明，如图。 [...]
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1 Feb 07 at 2:05 am
[...] lifehake.org 的作者 Leon Ho 在文章“0 to 12000 rss subscribers: ways to attract more subscriptions”介绍获得更多RSS订阅的几种方法经验，通过图表的统计数据表明，如图。 [...]
6种方法吸引更多订阅 at 博客报–All about blogging.
3 Feb 07 at 7:21 pm
I agree that from the reader’s point of view, full feed is easier, however, what good are 12K subscribers to you, if they don’t visit the site to see or click on ads? As one who reads most material in a feed reader, I rarely visit a site these days, only if I want to comment or read comments or if the feed is only partial. If the headline and introduction promisses compelling content, readers will visit the site and would be really interested in what you have to say (and may well click on your ads), and don’t just burn up your bandwidth.
judyofthewoods
6 Feb 07 at 4:21 pm
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0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions : Blogamental
27 Jun 07 at 1:33 pm
[...] 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions “That’s the beauty of RSS feed. If a web site adds value to its readers, and its feed gives enough materials for user to read, readers will keep the RSS subscription and keep coming back for more. Let me share number of ways which I learned during these two years on RSS feeds. You could grow your RSS subscriptions from 0 to 12,000 as well.” [...]
Why You Should Want More Subscribers and How to Get Them : Topic Factory
20 Aug 07 at 3:47 pm
Excellent RSS tips, Leon.
angie
24 Sep 07 at 12:55 pm
[...] 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions [...]
RSS Subscriptions - The Ultimate Resource List - MarcoRichter.net
2 Oct 07 at 9:12 am
The web is an explosive new world…and I have just tapped the edges with my web work. This article fascinates me (I would like 20 readers to expand into thousands of readers!) but I am still learning the language. I understand RSS but not the difference between a partial and full feed. I do say this article inspires me to learn more and to stay focused. I may have grown up and worked in an age where computers did not exist but that doesn’t mean I can master this knowledge today! Learning and experimenting are what keep us feeling vibrant and alive. Thanks for this great article.
Debra Brown
17 Oct 07 at 5:29 am
@Debra:
A full feed will show the entire article in the RSS feed, while a partial feed will show short an except of it. The partial feeds usually have a link to “Read More” which will take you to the full blog post on the website.
Eric Davis
27 Nov 07 at 12:48 am
Nice blog!
Figet
18 Dec 07 at 9:37 am
[...] too valuable that I made some changes immediately. For more information, read the post entitled 0 to 12,000 RSS Subscribers: Ways to Attract More Subscriptions. Social Bookmarking Trackback | Comments Leave a [...]
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28 Jan 08 at 10:15 pm
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28 Mar 08 at 1:46 am
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werutzb
7 Oct 08 at 10:19 pm
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schoooler
20 Jan 09 at 12:29 am
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