|
Monday, December 19, 2005
1) Put the subscription dialog on your permalink pages as well as your blog's home page.
Of course you have the subscription form or link on your main blog page (right? right!).
But if a user clicks on a link to your blog in a search engine like Google or Yahoo, they're much more likely to land on your individual post or item page, where your content stands alone.
Go on, try it - visit your own blog and click through to the individual entry. Can you subscribe from there? You should be able to! Update your template to include subscription options in your sidebar for all posts in all pages, not just your blog's main page, or include subscription links in each individual post. Don't forget to republish the entire blog when you're done.
2) Put the subscription URL on your email signature.
You don't need to have a form in your email address. Use the link created by the HTML subscription form page in FeedBlitz and add it to your email signature. And to your contact page. And to your support page. And where else? Your business card perhaps? Think! Get creative!
3) Write about FeedBlitz on your blog and encourage reader to use it.
Did you just sneak it in and hope your readers would notice? Many new feeds join FeedBlitz each day but - only a few write about it online. Talk aboutyour blog's new capabilities. Invite readers to sign up. Track subscriptions in FeedBlitz and / or FeedBurner.
4) Take advantage of third party services (such as FeedBurner) to add value to your feed.
FeedFlare. FeedBulletin feed alerts by mail. Google AdSense. There's so much more that you can do! Explore. Add. Create!
5) Use post truncation to push traffic to your blog.
This one's a little controversial - some people really dislike feeds that truncate posts, some people don't mind. If you want to truncate your posts to force people to your web site FeedBlitz supports that. In fact, you can (with a little work) give people choices about what to subscribe to - Improbulus (you know, I don't think that's her real name) has some great tips.
6) If your blog is separate from your main site, put a FeedBlitz signup form there too.
Many corporate sites have their blogs in a separate "we're really not quite not sure about this" section of the site. Help them get with the program!
Buddy up with your corporate webmaster and get your subscription form onto the main site. Get the blog's signup link onto everyone's email signatures. Your web site URL is there, your blog's sign up URL should be too. For example, the footer of every page at feedblitz.com has the signup form embedded in it. Result? Nearly four thousand email subscribers to FeedBlitz News so far.
Oh, and it never hurts to show how well your blog postings are doing in Google. Got a blog posting that's on the first page of search terms relevant to your business? Then make sure everyone knows and can see the value that blogging adds to the enterprise.
7) Would your readers be more comfortable if you called it an email newsletter?
Then do it! Consider these two possible reactions from a non-blog reader (that's 90% of the population, more or less):
8) Are you worth more than 16 cents a day?
You are? Do your email updates show that? No? Then customize the look and feel of your FeedBlitz emails using "Pro" to match your online brand.
Ok, this last one is really self serving, but consider the question anyway. Do you put more than 16c of time and effort into your blog each day? Shouldn't the emails from FeedBlitz reflect that? If you run ads, shouldn't you be running your ads in your emails too? Food for thought...
Of course you have the subscription form or link on your main blog page (right? right!).
But if a user clicks on a link to your blog in a search engine like Google or Yahoo, they're much more likely to land on your individual post or item page, where your content stands alone.
Go on, try it - visit your own blog and click through to the individual entry. Can you subscribe from there? You should be able to! Update your template to include subscription options in your sidebar for all posts in all pages, not just your blog's main page, or include subscription links in each individual post. Don't forget to republish the entire blog when you're done.
2) Put the subscription URL on your email signature.
You don't need to have a form in your email address. Use the link created by the HTML subscription form page in FeedBlitz and add it to your email signature. And to your contact page. And to your support page. And where else? Your business card perhaps? Think! Get creative!
3) Write about FeedBlitz on your blog and encourage reader to use it.
Did you just sneak it in and hope your readers would notice? Many new feeds join FeedBlitz each day but - only a few write about it online. Talk aboutyour blog's new capabilities. Invite readers to sign up. Track subscriptions in FeedBlitz and / or FeedBurner.
4) Take advantage of third party services (such as FeedBurner) to add value to your feed.
FeedFlare. FeedBulletin feed alerts by mail. Google AdSense. There's so much more that you can do! Explore. Add. Create!
5) Use post truncation to push traffic to your blog.
This one's a little controversial - some people really dislike feeds that truncate posts, some people don't mind. If you want to truncate your posts to force people to your web site FeedBlitz supports that. In fact, you can (with a little work) give people choices about what to subscribe to - Improbulus (you know, I don't think that's her real name) has some great tips.
6) If your blog is separate from your main site, put a FeedBlitz signup form there too.
Many corporate sites have their blogs in a separate "we're really not quite not sure about this" section of the site. Help them get with the program!
Buddy up with your corporate webmaster and get your subscription form onto the main site. Get the blog's signup link onto everyone's email signatures. Your web site URL is there, your blog's sign up URL should be too. For example, the footer of every page at feedblitz.com has the signup form embedded in it. Result? Nearly four thousand email subscribers to FeedBlitz News so far.
Oh, and it never hurts to show how well your blog postings are doing in Google. Got a blog posting that's on the first page of search terms relevant to your business? Then make sure everyone knows and can see the value that blogging adds to the enterprise.
7) Would your readers be more comfortable if you called it an email newsletter?
Then do it! Consider these two possible reactions from a non-blog reader (that's 90% of the population, more or less):
- What's a blog? Feed? Isn't that awfully narcissitic? And a little scary? Kids do that, right? No thanks - not for me.
- A regular newsletter? Contact when something I want is updated? Relevant? Timely? Sure! How do I get started?
8) Are you worth more than 16 cents a day?
You are? Do your email updates show that? No? Then customize the look and feel of your FeedBlitz emails using "Pro" to match your online brand.
Ok, this last one is really self serving, but consider the question anyway. Do you put more than 16c of time and effort into your blog each day? Shouldn't the emails from FeedBlitz reflect that? If you run ads, shouldn't you be running your ads in your emails too? Food for thought...
|
|
posted at 9:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
<< Home