How To Get 1261 RSS Subscribers In Less Than 3 Months
Add to : Del.Icio.Us / Reddit / Digg / Stumble Upon
Sometimes you gotta aim high, and then re-adjust. That’s what I did.
So, since every single blogger out there has a post on how you can increase your RSS numbers, I thought I’d write one too (no “sure-fire ways” post here, just my personal experience)! :)
How It All Started
I launched FreelanceFolder at the end of July 07. The goals were:
- 1000 RSS Subscribers in the first month
- Alexa Rank in the 70k range
- Technorati Rank around 15k
- At least 2000-2500 hits per day
- 30-60 posts/articles in the first month
We almost made it, except for the RSS count part. Well, I’m quite happy! :)
Writing Kick-Ass Posts
What’s the number one reason someone subscribes to a feed?
Some will say it’s a nice design, some will say it’s cause of the concept, the domain name, the logo, the niche, but of course we all know it’s about the content. Yes content is still King (capital “K“).
So the first thing was to get writers (it’s a multi-author blog) and have many posts ready before the launch. Cause, of course you always run into some bugs, but they were all fixed easily.
The second post we published, written by Goldy of GoldyWorld got linked to from LifeHack, they have like 45K-50K RSS subscribers. Needless to say that was exciting, a really nice start. I announced the launch of this blog on SWR (maybe you’re even a subscriber to SWR and to FreelanceFolder also), and then LifeHack share some link love for our second post. Guess what happened to the feed count? :)
Good enough reasons to write Killer posts, don’t you think?
Social Media Traffic
Of course getting links from A-listers is nice (according to some statistics I’d be an A-lister, whatever that means), and getting traffic from social media sites is also pretty cool. I strongly believe if you neglect one or the other you’re doing things wrong. I mean, you want both, don’t you? The recognition of an A-lister and the traffic from the social networking/media sites.
There is something called the “domino effect“, Steven from Vandelay Design wrote an excellent post about this. (oh and interviews are awesome!)
Basically the idea is when a post gets some attention from some social networking/bookmarking sites, you set things up so those visitors either vote or bookmark your posts on other sites, resulting in more traffic.
Here’s an example:
- You get traffic from StumbleUpon (quite easy)
- Stumblers visit your blog and see the Digg button, they Digg your post
- Stumblers and Diggers bookmark your post on Del.Icio.Us
- Del.Icio.Us users visit your blog and Digg/Stumble your post
- and so on…
Of course there are smaller sites like DailyHub that can help too.
If you experiment with the domino effect, and do it right, chances are you’ll hit the frontpage on Digg, and traffic will last for a couple of days. I especially like StumbleUpon for this (most Stumblers have a Digg account). Some of our posts for over 75K visitors in a day, thanks to the domino effect! :)
The Right Hosting
Of course if your blog is hosted on Blogger or WordPress.com you don’t have to worry about hosting, but I prefer getting a hosting plan, and have control over my everything (I’m a control freak when it comes to hosting my blogs, I wanna have access to everything).
So I chose MediaTemple (gs). And man, was that a great choice! I recently added a monitoring system, to see if there was any downtime or weird stuff going on, and so far it’s extremely reliable. We’ve been through so many Diggs, most servers would have crashed. We only had like 15 minutes of downtime, and MediaTemple moved the database to what they call a “burst container”, no charge, for 3 days!
Overall we got something like 180K visitors in 3 weeks. Again thanks to MediaTemple and the domino effect!
It’s All About Networking
One of the main reason this blog got so much traffic in such a short period of time (of course resulting in the 1261 rss subscribers) is because I spend about 2-4 hours a day stumbling posts, Digging, and networking with other bloggers. It would not have been possible to achieve those results otherwise I think. But anyway, I just love it :)
Choosing The Right Niche
There are millions of blogs about making money online. This niche is completely saturated. I like “make money online” blogs, but I didn’t wanted to go that route, I’m not sure this niche is that profitable. On the other hand the “freelance/work-at-home” niche is.
E-mail Subscriptions
Many of the blogs I read have the default RSS feed (smartwealthyrich.com/feed/), but still use feedburner. The result is usually an innacurate feed count. The Feedsmith plugin let’s you redirect your default feed to your feedburner feed. That helps increase your numbers!
Another thing I found is a lot of people don’t use the “subscribe by e-mail” feedburner thing. This is a must! Login to your feedburner account, select your feed, and then click the “publicize” tab, then “e-mail subscriptions” link on the left and activate it. Then copy-paste the code in your template somewhere. I love to receive rss feeds in my e-mail, I guess I’m not alone. While you’re there, why not enable the feedflares too?
Be Consistent
No need to write every single day, but let’s say 5 times a week. Especially after a big wave of traffic. Usually your feed numbers will increase, so you want to keep those new readers. Write another post right the next day.
Your Turn To Talk
So that’s it, not hard, you just have to work on it and you’ll see results. It helps a lot to have a team of writers that write “Diggable” posts though!
So, how many subscribers do you have? What will you do to increase those numbers? I’d like to know, share your own tips and tricks, your own ways of doing things. Maybe we could all learn something new!
******
*note: I’m not sure this post would qualify for the GAS contest, but it’s a “how-to” post, is it geeky enough? ;)
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64 Responses to “How To Get 1261 RSS Subscribers In Less Than 3 Months”
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Great work, Jon. You should be very proud of your success. I would be!
Congrats
Congratulations !
I think you are happier being aware that US$ is worth less than yours. Poor Yankees :)
Outstanding Jon! There’s plenty to admire in your model. It’s also quite good of you to share your actual growth experiences.
Congratulations! Keep up the great work.
Impressive. I’m a little bit behind you on 1071, but I’ll race you to 2000 :)
I am so glad you have found such success Jon. Keep it up…you’ll change everything!! :)
nice story - great work!
David, thanks a lot! I am, and I’m very happy I have great writers too :)
Hem, thanx!
AddFunds, well in fact, no, I liked it a lot when it was the other way around. All my clients are in the US, so $100USD is now like $94CAD…
Hi Daniel, thanks a lot! I hope some people find the information useful :)
Hey Peter! Fine with me, 2000 subscribers, let’s do this! :)
JC Carvill and Matth Ellsworth, thanks a lot!
Congrats, Jon. “Freelance” is hot right now, especially coupled with “productivity”, and you’ve done a great job.
That’s awesome Jon! Congrats!
GJ!
When it comes down to it content is king. Then it is just a matter of letting people know about the content.
great post…social bookmarking/networking is the way to go and knowing your niche obviously helps. I plan on utilizing these resources soon and getting residual traffic as well as direct
Great work! I love hearing about how people actually achieve their successes because each story is so unique!
Nice stats, good work.
Thanks for sharing/gloating ;)
That’s awesome work! I’m trying to increase the readership of my blog and this will really help.
It’s very nice of you to share good advices. These are sound advices that new bloggers should take time to play with. Great post!
Awesome advice! I just started blogging in August and looking to grow our blog on soccer, ultimately driving people to our online community at F11.com. This is helpful news. Thanks.
As always Jon, another great information.
Jon,
Thanks for writing yet another great post. It was pretty insightful to get the big picture.
Hey Jon,
Thanks for the great lowdown on how you got so many subscribers so quickly.
Writing Kick Ass Posts
Not something I think I’ve ever done. :(
Great Tips! Here are some more for the readers to increase visitors
http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/10/increase-visitors.html
keep up the good work !!!
great post :) a friend sent me this over AIM and I just bookmarked it on del.icio.us
I’ll stumble it later today and digg it ;) hehe domino effect rocks.
Congratulations! Showmonwy & John Chow have a contest going on this month on who is going to get the most feed subscribers.
What is your next goal?
Sorry I meant to type Shoemoney!
Great blog! I just found you, and I’m adding you to my blogroll. Keep it up!-
Hi! Found your blog via StumbeUpon! That was a very informative text. Best Regards from Germany. Markus
Thanks for the tips. I didn’t know the power of RSS feeds :)
My blog just started I would be happy if you stop by and share a comment
http://www.bloggerdollar.com
Jon,
Congratulations, you deserve it! And thanks for the link.
Well, you have such a nice advice. I agree with the “posting a lot” at the same time advice.
Thanks for mentioning feedflares. I didn’t know until you mentioned it. I when to look it up in feedburner and it is soooo coooo! Thank you!!
Thanks for the honesty in this post, Jon.
There’s too many “get traffic quickly and easily” articles out there, which skews perspective for many bloggers, esp newbies.
My short experience till date tells me there’s really hard work before any landslide traffic comes in, as in all other endeavors.
There’s just no shortcut to success.
Thanks Jon.
This is great Jon - congratulations! Since you’ve made the tweaks on my blog I’ve increased page views and doubled subscribers in 6 days. I didn’t realize how important email subscriptions were and hadn’t even set it up for my blog - but now I can see that in 6 days I’ve gone from 0 to 87 email subscribers. Thanks!
Great article. Currently some of my blogs struggle . I can’t find the balance between posting often and subscribers. When i post more the quality of my writing gets worse so i get less subscribers. Nice advice.
Rami
You gave me the kick up the bum I needed to put up my email subscription box. I will be interested to see what will happen.
I also downloaded and installed the feedburner plugin, Thank you.
Monika
This is probably the best info I have come across about getting some decent traffic to one’s site. Thanks so much!
Impressive Jon. Nice work. It must be great to see all the hard work pay off.
Hi folks, sorry I didn’t reply to your comments before, I’ve been real busy in the recording studio and with clients and designing my portfolio (coming soon) :)
Raj, thanks a lot! :) Yeah the “make money online” niche is kinda slowing down a little I guess.
Deron, Thanks a bunch!
Chad, thanks! You,re absolutely right, even if you write the best posts in the world, if no one knows about it, it won’t work. Balance :)
Hi Matthew, cool, if you ever need any help with social networking or something lemme know.
Char, thanks! :D
Russ, thank you!
Sly Bald Guy, awesome, I’m happy you got some good info out of my post.
BlogMyWay.org, Thank you, I hope people find it useful! :)
L, happy you liked the post!
Roshawn, thanks for the comment, really appreciated.
Hey Patrick, thanks. The feed count is a little higher now, at 1400 or something :)
Hi Jenny, “kick-ass”, well that depends on your perception, you do write kick-ass posts. you got like 100 subscribers, that’s awesome anyway!
seo blog, thanks for the link…
Hi Yves, thanks! Will do :)
Hey Starfeeder, thanks a bunch! Domino effect at its best! :D
Hello Love Puppy, thank you! My next goal? Finish designing my portfolio, and better monetize my blogs, I wanna structure things a little better and diversify a little, not to rely too much on third parties :)
Jennifer, thanks so much!
Hi Markus, thanks a lot! That’s proof SU is great! :)
Hi BloggerDollar, sure, will do, right after replying to comments hehe
Hey Steven, howz going? you’re very welcome for the link :)
firewalker, thanks, I’m happy you found useful infos here :)
Tina Su, you’re very welcome, feedflares are awesome, there’s a lot that a rss feed to Feedburner :)
Hi Lawrence, you’re right there’s no shortcuts. Some people move faster than others though. I honestly don’t think 1200 rss subscribers is “that” huge, some blogs got way more than that in less time, but well.. I’m trying to stay sane lol
Hey Christine! That’s great! Anytime, I’m there to help! ;)
Cricket Videos, just a quick tip: let your readers know you’ll write say 4 posts a week instead of 7. I used to write every single day, but lately I’ve been so busy with projects I had less time to write, but I’m getting more rss subscribers, so I think it’s really just about letting your readers and visitors know :)
Monika, awesome! I’m happy it helped! :)
AJ, very welcome!
Hey Armen, thanks a lot! It does feel great! :)
humm, that’s quite a lot of replies all in one shot :)
You are simply amazing. I dare not even think of 100. You are getting more than one thousand!!! Amazing.
This is amazing. Do you manually submit your posts to Digg? I have had good rankings and links with a couple posts, but I don’t have a Digg button on my blog. I guess I should get one?
Also, as a unknown blogger how easy/hard would it be to ask a B-level blogger from my niche to post an article on my personal blog? Would they simply not return my email?
Those are some amazing stats you’ve posted. I know you said your rss subscriptions skyrocketed after the lifehack link. Did you by chance quantify just how many of those subscriptions could be attributed to the link love you received?
i can’t even make 10 rss subcribers a month
Congrats on the incredible rise of subscribers and traffic. I was just wondering if you tracked the conversion of readers to income of your blog?
For non marketers you make it look so easy. Is it that easy? Are there anyother things you did to get noticed, or just good content at the right market? It just seems so easy.
We also hope to have as high goals as you do!
We want those readers! haha!
Nice ideas. I’ll have to activate the email subscriptions (I didn’t think anyone used it) and take a closer look at stumbleupon as a source for traffic.
Critical Critic - I thought the same thing! Then I contracted Jonathan to do some tweaks on my blog and added 80 EMAIL subscribers in less than 60 days (150+ total in that same time period). I had no idea that this many people were subscribing by email - I would definitely recommend it!
this is a very inspiring post.
congratulations on this incredible achievement and thanks for sharing it.
I’m another of those people who prefer the feeds via email. Even with the email promo on my DVD blog’s sidebar, though, the RSS outnumbers email 10-1. Go figure.
I have run giveaways to get email subscribers (it worked, about half stayed) and I use “Enjoyed this post? Sign up for …” links at the end of some posts.
I think of the email subscribers as being most dedicated to reading the site.
nice post, I’ll take some tips for my new blog. Pfft. i hope to do what you did in 1 month in 6 months.
Nice post! It gave me new ideas specially about social bookmarking. Thanks!
[…] How to Get 1,261 RSS Subscribers In Less Than 3 Months from Smart Wealthy Rich. […]
Thanks for the chock full of nuts post, I learnt quite a lot from it!
Thanks for ur contribution!!Its a worthy one. you deserve it! And thanks for the link.keep more posting like this
It is always motivating to hear someone else’s success and how they got there. So thanks for sharing that info with the rest of us.
“Writing kick ass posts” - I’m glad to hear you say that (so to speak).
Creating great content is definitely helping YOUR blog to get more diggs at the very least. :-)
That was a very interesting and helpful post. Thanks for providing that information, it will be of use to me.
Marvelous!!
Good success man..Your survey was very nice and have you got that much subscribers? I think you are in the bed of money. Good way to success and thank you for sharing your ideas. You just helped more than expected people in your life.
Congrats…!!!!
Congrats for the achievement!
What an awesome work! I was trying do the same with my blog but now I know what to do. Thanks and congratulations.
hey i liked your site and posts. First time reader and a starter blogger. I like the way you differentiated: ‘making money online’ and ‘freelance/work at home’ niches.
Please f you can have a look at my blog at: hershbhardwaj.blogspot.com
And advice on wt niche should i adhere to?
What a great read. I was really in search of ways to get some readers to my blog. So glad I stumbled upon this post.
Manny S
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