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Increase Blog Subscribers in 7 Easy Steps

Written by: Karen Scharf

Article Overview: Now that you have gone live with your blog, what’s next? How will you know if it is successful; how will you know if you are delivering the content your readers, your prospects and your clients are after? You will definitely want to monitor your pageviews, traffic, clickthroughs, search engine rankings and other overall indicators of website success. Your number of blog subscribers, however, may be the most accurate and reliable measurement you have for determining the success of your blog.

Increase Blog Subscribers in 7 Easy Steps

Now that you have gone live with your blog, what's next? How will you know if it is successful; how will you know if you are delivering the content your readers, your prospects and your clients are after? You will definitely want to monitor your pageviews, traffic, clickthroughs, search engine rankings and other overall indicators of website success. Your number of blog subscribers, however, may be the most accurate and reliable measurement you have for determining the success of your blog. Easily put, let's say that your blog is like a coffee shop, and your blog subscribers then are the repeat customers who keep coming back on a regular basis. In business terms, your customers are what keeps your business up and running. If you don't have customers, you might as well close shop. With a brick and mortar business, you certainly wouldn't turn down the occasional customer, the casual guy who just comes in once a year, or the straggler who came in off the street, who's never been there before and will more than likely never return. But it's the repeat customer, the guy who comes in week in and week out, just like clock work... that's the guy who keep you afloat. He's the one you can count on for steady revenues.

The same holds true for your blog. Sure, it's nice to have readers who find your blog accidentally; the ones who clicked a link from another website, not really sure what to expect. Or the reader who is looking for something very particular and found your blog in Google. These one-time readers are nice, but it's your regular readers, the ones who subscribe so they don't miss a single post, the ones who respect what you have to say and what you are able to teach... those are the readers you really want. They are the ones you're posting for any way, aren't they?

So, how do you increase blog subscribers to keep your blog running? Here are 7 easy steps for getting more blog subscribers - most of which can be implemented immediately.

1. Make sure your readers know that you welcome their subscription. Place your subscription box in a strategic area where your readers can easily spot it. Consider adding the subscription box to the bottom of each of your blog posts. Include a warm and welcoming message to encourage subscribers and let them know you are interested in a relationship.

2. Be a guest contributor or blogger on someone else's blog. A reference to your blog with a brief description at the end of your post is a great way for increasing your blog traffic and subscribers. Just inform the blog owner of your plans before you start posting. And make sure that the content you will be posting is original content which cannot be found in your blog.

3. Stay within your chosen niche. Do not stray away from your typical topic. A highly specialized, unique topic generally works best. Your readers will come back to your blog because you will be regarded as the authority on the topic.

4. Consider offering a freebie such as an e-book, special report, an audio series or an e-course to your website visitors if they sign up as blog subscribers. Use a technique similar to the freebie offer for newsletter subscribers. (I'll be doing a Twitter series on offering freebies in just a few days. Be sure to follow me on Twitter to learn more)

5. Create a landing page whose primary purpose is to drive blog subscribers. Again, this is similar to the techniques used to increase email subscribers. This strategy can be used with your AdWords campaigns or with joint venture partners.

6. Feature a podcast that is related to the subject matter of your blog. Have it listed in different podcasting directories and get it into i-Tunes. Never forget to mention your blog in every single episode and discuss the different benefits of subscribing. Another great way of promoting your blog is landing some interviews with prominent players in your niche. Aside from increasing your presence online, you are creating content that can be used as part of your special gift or "ethical bribe" for new blog subscribers.

7. And just like driving traffic to your website, be proactive by participating in forums relevant or important to your niche. Creating informative posts will get you noticed and most likely, people will take interest in you and what your blog have to offer. Add your blog subscription form to your signature file or resource box.

But the most important tactic for increasing blog subscribers is to produce relevant, timely content on a regular basis. Once you get in that habit, I guarantee you that you will see your number of blog subscribers grow.

Related Articles
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  How to Guest Blog
  How to Build a Relationship with Your List

Article Tags: blog, brick and mortar, brick and mortar business, business terms, clock work, coffee shop, google, measurement, occasional customer, prospects, search engine rankings, straggler, subscribers, time readers, traffic



Related Forum Posts
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
Re: e-Commerce and e-Payment providers - When I came back to Japan in 1999 I sometimes used to ask my students if they would buy anything on the Internet and at that time most thought it was too risky. I'd encourage them to try by using well known sites such as Amazon.co.jp and also pointed out that using a credit card on a reputable site was safer than using it at a restaurant. I can't remember the last time I had that discussion or when the "tipping point" occurred in Japan. To answer your other question, I use Paypal for several reasons: 1. Brand familiarity 2. Easy to use 3. Free to withdraw 50,000yen+ to my Japanese bank account - a huge benefit (but maybe other systems also offer that...?) 4. Easy to cancel subscriptions On the down side, their transaction fees are quite costly, they are difficult to contact and when disputes arise you can sometimes lose even when you can prove via your tracking service that the disputed item was "delivered" to the customer's address!
Re: Domain name sugestion - Hi Anelly, Support-Box.com sounds very good to me. Easy and catchy.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.


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