Power Maxx Blog

First off - I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Hope Santa was good to everyone - now onto the post.

Anyone that’s blogging professionally knows that your RSS feed is a fairly good indicator of how popular your site is. For me, and I’m sure most others, it’s a quick and easy way to check out what’s new on your favourite blogs without having to muddle through each blog individually. Once you’ve found the new blog articles, you can simply go directly to them, and comment away on the newest content that they’ve posted.

I read an article on my favourite blogs the other day, John Chow dot com, a list of 10 things to do when you’re losing RSS readers. This article hit home to me, because despite the fact that I have some very loyal readers, my RSS numbers seem to fluctuate daily, and I could never figure it out. I use the feedburner service to track my RSS stats, and I would be very curious to know how does it determine the number of RSS readers you actually have.

To me anyways, it would make sense to determine this figure by the number of times that your RSS feed gets pulled by unique users daily. You’d figure that your subscribers are going to check your blog at least once a day, so that method makes sense to me. If it is in fact, a different method, I’d be very curious to know what that is.

So fluctuations aside, I am going to take a look at the points that John Chow made, and make my own contributions to that almighty quandary as to what to if you’re losing RSS subscribers.

1. Is it a One Time Drop?
   As I previously mentioned, this drop could simply be the way the number of feed subscribers is tabulated. Another possibility that would be that it is a glitch with feedburner. Afterall - they are still computers, and computers can often return glitches!
2. Are you Actively Writing?
   This relates back to the old concept of getting readers in the first place: GOOD CONTENT!  If you’re not producing content, well thats not very fun now is it.  You would hope that your readers will still hang around unless your hiatus is indefinite, but the easiest way to get around this is to just start writing again.  I personally like to write some posts ahead of time and schedule them.  That way if I’m in a non-creative mood one day, my readers won’t lose out because I’ve written a few good articles ahead of time for them.
3. Is there Any Interactivity?
   We’re all human afterall - we like interactions with others.  This goes for blogging as well!!  I make a point to answer any of the relevant comments that pop up, as well as visiting my readers blogs to show them that not only do I care about their opinions on what I say, but that I care about what they have to say as well!!  To some, this might be quite obvious - after all - you should give before you can receive.  But if you’ve set out to make a money making blog, you might have lost sight of this.
4. Look at your Latest Content - Can Anyone Learn Something from it?
   You should always ask yourself - what will a reader take away from your post?  This relates back to one of the basic blogging concepts of “What’s in it for the Reader?”  If you offer your readers some useful advice, chances are they will come back for more.  In my case, my Looking at the Big Picture section sets out to give useful advice for the everyday person.  I also offer a clever humor section, as well as other interesting topics that allow readers to learn something new everytime they visit my blog.
5. DO NOT FORGET ABOUT THE TITLE!!
   If you write great content but your title blows - no one’s going to read it.  It’s as simple as that.  So make sure your title is relevant and makes the reader want to READ!
6. Run a Competition
   Not to toot my own horn, but take me as an example.  I’m aiming to become the king of competitions in the blogosphere!  What better way to gain and keep readers than to give away free stuff!!  John Chow suggests to get people to subscribe by email and randomly pick a winner.  Not a bad idea if I may say so myself.
7. Collaborate with other Blogs
   What better way to gain readers than to get them from an existing blog.  Try to setup some sort of cross promotion deal with another blog - in that case, everyone wins!  Another good way to do this is by having guest bloggers.
8. Be Honest, Personal and Challenge Yourself!
   As one of my articles states - you have to be humble.  If all your articles are simply promotions in disguise, and all you do is talk about how amazing you are - no ones going to want to read what you have to say.  Never forget where you came from, and you’ll go a long way towards keeping and gaining more readers.
9. Tell People what you Do Well so that they can Learn
   This goes hand in hand with the above point, as well as a few others in the list.  People want to be able to learn something and take away info from what you have to say.  But at the same time, be humble about it.  If you make a ton of money online, tell people about it, so they can do the same, but don’t brag - no one likes a sore winner.
10. Speak to your Readers
    If all else fails, just ask your readers what they would like to see on the blog, or don’t like about it, and you can gain worlds of insight into your problem!  I have taken the advice of my readers many times, and as far as I can tell, it has paid off.  Give the people what they want, and the people will come back for more.

So that’s that - thanks to John Chow for the original idea - I hope I’ve been able to add something of value to the situation!

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT MY $175 COMMENTATING CONTEST AND HOW YOU CAN WIN AT THE FOLLOWING LINK!! CLICK HERE!!!!

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