What is the best way to increase subscribers to your blog?

I've been asked this question twice in the last two days... what is the best way to increase subscribers to your blog?

You probably already know that having great content with compelling headlines, published frequently will help you increase the number of people who subscribe to your blog.

And there's a lot more you can do.

In my previous post on List Building for Bloggers, you learned that using email in conjunction with your blog is one of the best ways to get people to come back to your blog over and over again. If they love what you're writing about and it solves their problems, they'll subscribe to your updates and return to read your articles. The biggest challenge though, is moving readers to become subscribers.

One of the biggest mistakes I see bloggers make around this is that they bury the subscription form low on the blog's sidebar so few people see it, AND they don't ASK readers to subscribe.

Two tips for avoid theses mistakes:

1. Put the email subscription form at or near the top of your sidebar so it's visible when the reader lands on your site.
2. Include a call to action and a compelling reason to subscribe, like a free gift (see this post for ideas)

Another tool I recently discovered though it's been around for awhile, is a cool Wordpress plugin called "What Would Seth Godin Do". The plugin displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and a different message to returning visitors. Use this plugin to invite new visitors to subscribe to get blog updates and to welcome back returning visitors, encouraging them to comment and share your post.

You can customize each message and set how many times a visitor sees the "new visitor" message before it switches to the "returning visitors" message.

You can also set the location of the messages: at the top of the post or the bottom. I put it at the bottom (you can see it in action at DeniseWakeman.com - not available for TypePad blogs) since I believe readers are more inclined to subscribe once they have read your content.

I added this plugin about a week ago and have noticed an increase of about 15% in new subscribers. It takes a couple of minutes to install and customize and then you're good to go.

How do you build your blog subscriber list? I'm always on the lookout for new tactics to try and share.

Get a heck of a lot more ideas for building your blog email list with List Building for Bloggers.

 

 

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Comments

[jezza101]

Am amused by the name of the plugin! But seems a good idea, on the "to check out" list!

[Phil Hollows]

Hi Denise:

FYI FeedBlitz also has a WP plugin to encourage subscriptions from comment forms, while people are interacting with your site. It's called FeedBlitz MemberMail and you grab it from the plugins area of your WP admin panel.

Thanks!

Phil

[Leigh]

Yet another reason to switch to wordpress. And I just discovered an article to switch from blogger to wordpress (on own domain) without losing SEO rankings...though I think it says to use wordpress.com vs wordpress.org

Anyways, thanks for the great idea, Denise!

[Denise Wakeman]

Phil, thanks for info re: the Feedblitz comment plugin. Does it work with disqus comment system?

[Anne]

Wonderful article. I was all set to do the What Would Seth Godin Do but then realized that it is Wordpress only. Fingers crossed that Blogger adds something similar soon

[Andrew @ Blogging Guide]

This is a very interesting read Denise. It is really a challenge to get subscription to our blogs but as the saying goes if there's a will there is always a way.

[David Newby]

Hi Denise,

I have a couple of suggestions to build subscribers:

-Placing subscription forms in several places [Ex. at the top AND at the bottom of the blog] AND
-Having big, bold calls to action

Thanks for your other suggestions. I am dabbling around with the Seth Godin plug-in you mentioned, but I have a self-hosted site. Is it possible to use it with a self-hosted site?

[David Newby]

Correction to my last post...

I do NOT have a self-hosted site. I am using WordPress.com for my blog...so is the plugin possible with WordPress.com?

[Denise Wakeman]

David, I don't use wordpress.com so I'm not sure if they have the ability to add plugins. You'll have to check with support. There may be a widget that does something similar.

[Denise Wakeman]

Just learned about another wordpress plugin that is similar and generates unique welcomes based on the referrer url for the person landing on your blog: http://omninoggin.com/wordpress-plugins/wp-greet-box-wordpress-plugin/