Increasing RSS subscribers - What actually works?

On some of my blogs I have been successful in increasing RSS subscribers; others have proved a little more difficult. These are the things that I have learnt which really help increase RSS subscribers.
Don’t Give Up

The first 100 are the hardest. Therefore, don’t expect it to be easy. Once you reach a certain tipping point, the number of subscribers will increase with less effort.

Focus

When people subscribe they want to know what to expect. If you have a mixed blog, it will increase the chance of people unsubscribing. Poem of the Day is pretty self explanatory. Every day, one poem. It’s a very simple formula and an effective strategy for encouraging subscription.

Quantity over Quality.

On our self improvement blog, the average posting schedule is 2-3 times a week. That’s not a huge amount, but, we try to make each post worthwhile. We aim for bookmarkable content, rather than quantity. People are happy to subscribe when they know their RSS feeds are not going to be filled with ‘blog filler’

Guest Posting

I have written a series of guest posts for various blogs. This helps create a steady stream of traffic. The traffic is also highly targeted, they tend to be people who know what RSS is and therefore, are more likely to subscribe. I have only written one guest post for Netwriting, but, it did lead to an increase in subscribers.

Anticipation.

People subscribe because they don’t want to miss on potential future content. If a blog creates an impression that there will be great articles coming in the future people will subscribe.

First Impressions Count

• The design shows a lot about the blog.
• Is this blogger a professional?
• Do they care about the readers?
• Do they provide interesting content?
• Are they more interested in making money (filling with ads)?

Success on Stumbleupon Helps.

I have noticed that stumbleupon users tend to be more internet literate. They don’t click on ads, but, they do tend to know what RSS is. Therefore, there is a good ratio of people subscribing. Traffic from Google tends to have a low propensity to subscribe, simply because they don’t know what RSS is.

Things Which I will Be Trying

1. Free E Book for Subscribers.

If you use feedburner, you can use the feedflare feature to add links at the bottom of your RSS feed. This means you can give ebooks away just to subscribers. I am going to try this on my economics blog where I have a Revision Guide to give away.(I will be posting about how to use feedflare soon) But, it is a very useful feature, especially for people who subscribe using RSS.