Why Should You Encourage Your Readers to Subscribe to RSS FEED?

[watdawat]

Why should you encourage RSS FEED subscription? Wouldn't this limit your site visits?

[ffnstuff]

great question! Sounds like i should turn it into a post.

A loyal reader is more valuable than a 'part-time' or first time reader. They could click off your blog without earning you any money and never come back. Or click adsense and be gone forever.

By getting a subscriber they continue to read your articles and get involved in your website. Not only that but say you plug an affiliate etc, they would be likely to join. Things like that.

[The University Kid]

The more your RSS numbers, the more you can sell advertising for.




Oh err yeah... the loyalty thing above comes into it too

If a reader can be bothered to subscribe to your RSS feed, you can be sure they've taken a genuine interest in your website

[Bloggeries]

Dude!!

I was just going to start one saying "WHO CARES ABOUT RSS SUBSCRIBERS".

The way things are going with all these contests..... I don't trust 90% of people's count. Sure 5000 people signed up to win the $500 you are giving away. This does NOT mean they read. Also from another thread seeing people with 100+ feeds in their reader. AS IF they are reading a 1/10th of them.

Personally I think it's over rated. It's a GOOD metric because one of the ONLY ones like Alexa to gauge the success of a blog. Also check lot's of people just put an image because it "matters so much".

If people want to subscribe go for it. Like look at me... I read TONES of blogs but typically never subscribe...

[Ferox]

I put an RSS reader into NDF. First there was 1 reader, then 2, then 4, then back to 1. It doesn't matter to me, though I can't help wondering who they were, or why they unsibscribed.

[Initech]

I look at it as another method of building a list. Weather the list of rss subscribers you build is useful or not is another thing. I think it depends on what your niche is and what type of readers you are targeting to.

[ffnstuff]

Originally Posted by Ferox

I put an RSS reader into NDF. First there was 1 reader, then 2, then 4, then back to 1. It doesn't matter to me, though I can't help wondering who they were, or why they unsibscribed.

Your RSS count will vary. It depends on how many people access your rss feed on that particular day. So if only one person logs into their reader etc. Then it will display one

[pcsourcepoint]

Many may not unsubscribe when they stop reading your feed, particularly if the visitor changes readers. Thus the number of subscribers may not reflect the number of active readers. The "reach" is supposedly a better indicator (as defined by feedburner) of true visitor engagement (e.g. clicks on links) within a blog...

[WhoJayBe]

Also, because the RSS Feeds are based on a "daily" basis, that's the minimum amount of people that would be reading your article on any given day. A lot of people go to peoples sites and look for that number to see how many readers they have... especially since Alexa, Compete, etc are not accurate when telling stats...