How Do I Subscribe To Your Blog?

Build A Better Blog Day 12

It must be a habit or maybe some type of obsession, but every time I visit a blog or web site the first thing I do is look for their subscription options. I want to know if I can subscribe to an RSS feed or email notification, and where on the site the link is located. After I've had a chance to read the blog I might want to subscribe to the feed via Google Reader. The most frustrating thing is a site who buries their feed somewhere at the very bottom or camouflaged on the side bar somewhere.

A major faux pas is to not have any type feed available on your blog. More and more people actually read blogs through an RSS reader (there are some reader links here). This process allows the reader to scan several posts from their favorite blogs quickly. If you don't have a feed I probably won't be coming back. When I see a good post title and like what's been written, I might click through to the site and learn more.

Almost every blogging system creates a feed by default. You can provide the feed as a text link, through some graphic, this seems to be standard, or use a service like FeedBurner. Using a service like FeedBurner allows you to see how many subscribers you have, track which posts are being clicked on and gives you the option of adding links to social book marking sites or the comments for the post.

There are many arguments for and against how much of your post is shown in your feed. One camp who says show it all, and a lot of readers agree. They don't want to read a few sentences and then have to click into your blog to read the rest. Sort of defeats the purpose of an RSS reader. The other camp says only show a small part of the post requiring the reader to click through to the blog. This tactic is used when the blog owner wants you to see ads or other eye candy. I admit I used the summary version of my feed until I had several readers tell me they hated having to click through to my blog to read the whole post. I wasn't trying to sell anything so I fixed it. Now I show the whole post.

I read somewhere, and I can't remember where, that if you put your blogs RSS feed link near the top, where visitors would see it quickly, increases the number of subscribers. I don't have any hard scientific numbers, but from personal experience as I wrote at the beginning of this post, if I have to hunt for it I probably wont subscribe. The more subscribers you have the better chance you have of driving traffic to your blog. What ever you decide to do, just make sure you have a feed and make it available to your readers. Don't make them hunt for it. See my main page. The links are right at the top. Easy to see and easy to subscribe.

ProBlogger's day twelve post: Introduce Yourself to another Blogger