Browsing some of the popular money making blogs like JohnChow.com or Problogger.net, you can see some impressive numbers in their Feedburner feedcount chicklet.

Here is Chow’s chicklet for July08, 2008:

And here’s Darren’s chicklet for the same date:

So how does one go from Zero readers to 20 or 50k readers? Well it’s not easy and it’s a long and painful process. However you need to know where to start. Here are some tips on how you can increase your readers count:

  1. Ask them to subscribe! IMHO, this is crucial. That is why I placed this on #1 spot in this to-do list. Many blogs simply place the chicklet or RSS button and expect people to find their way to subscription page. Well it doesn’t work that way. Not only that you need to ask your visitors to subscribe to you feed, but you also need to make sure it’s easy process and you need to place the subscription boxes to prominent places on your site.
  2. Place your subscription forms smartly! I would add here that I am a fan of those who put their subscription forms on most prominent places on their site. I know most of you like to put sponsors on those places (upper right part of the site) but you need to trust me on this one. This will work.
  3. Place your subscription forms on all pages, and not only on your index page. When a person visit your site trough a Search Engine, he or she will most likely end up on some of your inner pages. And you want them to subscribe too. That is why you need to offer them that possibility by placing the form on your blog single pages, not only on index page. A good choice will be your right sidebar.
  4. Choose subscription service that offers quick and easy sign up process. Important thing to know here is that each additional subscription step will cost you potential new subscribers. There were many experiments that showed how does adding one subscription step increase the number of abandoned subscriptions. There is a very good subscription pathway testing article on Marketing Experiments site about this topic. Also, I need to note here that Feedburner.com is my choice for feed subscriptions.
  5. Add subscription page. This might also help increasing your feed readers count. Here you can see ours.
  6. Offer free stuff to new subscribers. If you are in position to do so, you can offer free E-Book or some other kind of free reward to your readers. Many popular blogs use this technique with success.
  7. Offer rewards. Free review on your site, free one month banner or button, other free stuff to people who subscribe during the ramblings. These subscribers can sometimes quickly unsubscribe as soon as prize winners are announced however sometime they stay due to quality of articles and content offered on your site.

These are all free and easy techniques commonly used on some of the most popular blogs and sites on the net. Utilizing some of them for your visitors and your site you can expect a huge increase of feed readers on your blog. However, important thing to note here is that without quality and useful content you can’t expect people to stay in your subscribers list. You always need to offer more than other blogs and sites in your niche.

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