Blog Tipz

Some blogs are never able to attract the same level of following that others have.  There are some obvious reasons for that.  You can attest to the fact that you are extremely selective (typically) about the sites you have listed in your favorite feed reader, and there is good reason for that  - you don’t have the time to read hundreds of new articles every day.

When you want to find the best way to increase your subscriber count (for everything it’s worth), there are some key areas that you need to be looking at.  Otherwise, you’ll continue hovering at the low levels that you have since you started your blog.

1. Your Feed Doesn’t Work

On a regular basis, make sure that people can subscribe to your blog through their RSS reader.  If no posts are syndicated to your feed address, people won’t be able to read your content, resulting in lower numbers if you happen to be tracking your subscriber levels through FeedBurner or other services.

Sometimes the fix is as easy as using a redirection service, although it may involve completely coding the RSS feed (although tutorials are available).  If you are using a popular blog system, most have multiple formats (ATOM and RSS, at a minimum) available for readers to subscribe to.

2. You Don’t Promote Your Feed

Contrary to what you are initially lead to believe, people don’t automatically subscribe to your blog if they find a single piece of content interesting.  It takes much more than that – you need to heavily promote your feed on your blog and elsewhere. 

Even though you aren’t directly linking to your feed in comments you leave on other blogs, I often look at comments as an opportunity to get people to contemplate whether subscribing is right for them.  Commenting on other blogs indicates that you want to share a relationship with that blogger and their readers – they then feel more inclined to subscribe to your feed.

You should prominently place a link, RSS image, and other forms of promotion throughout your blog – in your sidebar and below/above posts, preferably, but a link in the header and footer, as well as a separate “Subscribe” page will surely help you increase your subscriber base even faster.

3. You Can’t Be Taken Seriously

Take a look back at your posting frequency.  If your blog has an abnormally high (or low) number of posts per week/month, you should focus on creating a balance that people will want to subscribe to.  Multi-author blogs that have upwards of twenty posts per day published can’t equate in subscriber counts, as some unsubscribe due to the basic fact that you don’t have enough time to read all those new posts.  On the other hand, you can’t have an “empty” appearing blog, or readers will unsubscribe due to the lack of new content.

The essential fact – you need to run a professional site.

4. Your Theme and Overall Message Isn’t Appealing

Readers want to connect with you – share your thoughts and be able to comment on posts that are delivered to their feed readers.  If you can’t do this, you’re out of luck when it comes to increasing subscribers.  You need to have a complete set of content, blog theme, overall message/topic, and the community behind your blog or it’ll be easy for people to choose a “competing” site’s subscription options versus yours, which is extremely limited, with no clear objectives.

Conclusion

Consider your readers as a reflection of yourself.  If you can’t step back from your site and analyze the valuable aspects, you will never be able to effectively grow your subscriber base.  Put yourself in someone’s shoes that has never visited your blog – does something prevent them from subscribing?  The key to finding your tipping point is finding what is wrong and fixing/improving it.