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Oh Word Subsciptions double in less than 2 months · by Rafi Kam
Feedburner offers a lot of great services to anyone with a blog or syndicated website. We use them for our feed and that gives us the ability to track how many people are checking their Oh Word subscription on a given day.
I just looked at this chart which shows our subscription count over the span of our use of Feedburner (since November).
As you can see, in December through May growth was steady but fairly slow. Especially considering that according to our web logs March (when we were selling Dilla shirts like hotcakes) remains our best month ever for site traffic.
So why didn’t we see any real boost in subscriptions in March even though our site traffic was double what it had been in February? It seems obvious now – we didn’t ask. It’s hard to close a deal without making the pitch.
Looking at the chart, in late May you can see a little Seth Godin-induced erection in our subscription numbers but since we still weren’t asking for the subscription that wasn’t as huge as it could have been. Sure enough, the chart goes back down to the normal level a few days after his post linked to us.
Around the next week we begin to rise though and as you can see the growth has been steady and sharp since then, doubling our totals from around the 140s to 284 (yesterday’s count) in less than 2 months.
It’s no mystery. I know exactly what I owe these results to – following the advice of Brian Clark aka CopyBlogger.
The first golden piece of advice was a reminder that it’s more important to cater to your fans than to cast out a wide net. When I used to talk with Roger, agent b and David about our plans for building this site, we knew that if we built the site the way we wanted our core audience would be small but that small audience would freakin’ love this place. It can be easy to forget that priority when you start thinking about how to attract more people. CopyBlogger offered a great reminder that subscribers are the group to be concerned with and a better representation than site traffic of who your core audience is.
Next, I’ve got to say these tips on how to up your subscriber count really do work. I implemented them here at the start of June – right before that huge change in our chart.
Basically Brian’s tips boil down to making the act of subscribing a priority by setting up a subscription page, making the subscription prominent in your template and, I think most importantly, by asking people for their subscription. That’s why you see that little offer at the end of each Oh Word blog post.
Many people aren’t even aware of the benefits of subscribing to a blog so I also used Brian’s explanation of RSS so people can go check that and do the science.
And then subscribe! We’re feeling you if you’re feeling us. We need to take this relationship to the next level baby…
Comments for "Oh Word Subsciptions double in less than 2 months"
That’s great news! It also doesn’t hurt that you have a great blog. :)
— Brian Clark Jul 21, 12:23 PM
The only reason I hadn’t subscribed yet (I just did) was because I didn’t know what the point was. I visit a lot of blogs daily (mostly politically oriented) and none of them ask me to “subscrube” to anything, is this standard among blogs now?
— Epitome Jul 21, 03:35 PM
Epitome,
It’s just a handy way to keep track of whatever blogs you want in 1 place without visiting 20 or 100 different url’s. No pressure to subscribe if you prefer the old fashioned way .. subscribing to rss feeds just makes life easier for you.
Personally I use Google Reader to check on all my feeds. There are lots of other aggregators (programs for reading feeds) out there.
Some people prefer the email option but I go with an aggregator for that up to the minute fix.
As for whether it’s standard, having an RSS feed to subscribe to has been pretty standard on blogs for a while but there was no standard on how they let people know about it. Some places use “RSS”, some places say “syndicate”, some say “XML”, some don’t say anything and just have the feed hidden in their html.
This
symbol has become a standard but if you dont already know what it means that doesn’t help so I also include the “subscribe” term for those who aren’t already in the know.
To me “subscribe” is the most user-friendly and accurate way to express what a site’s reader is doing.
— Rafi Jul 21, 03:48 PM
A few extra links to the site don’t hurt the subscription rate either. ;)
— DJ Flash Jul 24, 03:55 AM