Feed Your Blog
First things first. A word of thanks for the first four tippers, who like my blog here enough to give me a small tip. Like a good and courteous waiter who has been tipped for his excellent service , it is only proper that I return a smile and say a humble thank you. Not so much for the 3 bucks, but for my appreciation of the appreciation shown towards this blog.
Thanks to Mr.Endoh of Pure Ranting Room for breaking the bubble and taking the initiative to set things rolling.
Thanks to Patrick of Beijing Olympic Fans for following suit. He got a kickass URL name that is going to bring him tons of Search Traffic. Would have been better if he hyphenated the words though.
Thanks to my old blog buddy Helen, of My All for the heck of it.
Thanks to Jim Kukral of Ask The Blogger who tells you anything you want to know about blogging , making money and everything under the sun. Just go and ask him a question.
Its the least I can do, giving you guys some link love, as I probably won’t be tipping you back as that would look like we are exchanging tips and we would look like real cheapos. 
Right. Back to business.
Feeding Your Blog.
It has been advised by many that it is not a very wise practise to show your feed counter when you have a feed subscriber base of less than 50 or a hundred in number. Mob mentality is a natural instinct that humans have. When they see a crowd, they will automatically walks towards it to find out what the commotion is about. So, the bigger the crowd the more people it will attract to make it even bigger to attract even more. Until the time the crowd finds out that they have been duped and there is noting special, only will they disperse.
Using this behavioural instinct, the most difficult period of blog subscriptions is the initial months when we don’t have a single subscriber. We go and subscribe to our own blog and see a pitiful 1 in the counter. Please don’t place that counter in your blog. It only reveals your vulnerability. Hide it. Hide it until you have say, at least 50 subscribers before showing it. I have taken down my counter, and believe me, I do have many times over 50 for this blog, but I made a promise to myself that the counter will not be up until I hit the 500th. subscribers mark. God know how long that will take, but I will be giving a push in the coming days.
Those who reads this blog via their respective feed readers would have noticed a short message I left under each post to keep an eye on something that I might be giving away to my feed readers. There was some thought holding a contest, but then the prize will only benefit one or two. I want something that every subscriber can have.
Why Go For Subscribers.
If you have followed this blog, I was initially of the opinion that readers should be attracted to come to the blog physically so they can comment or maybe click on a few Ads. Something that feed subscribers can never do. My opinion took an about turn when I realised the number of subscribers to a blog plays a big part in determining the success of a blog, especially so after Google Page Ranks lost quite a bit of her reputation as a reliable ranking system. We now sees blogs with less than 50 subscribers and even less readers ranked higher than blogs with hundreds of them.
This believe or opinion was made even stronger with plugins now available to show many more things in the feeds. Text Ads can be added. Adsense too can now be embedded into the feeds and short special messages like the one I left for my subscribers are all now a possibility that was not available before. I won’t know if adding all those Ads into the feeds will do any good as most feed readers do so to escape the Ads in the first place, but it shows that the attention is slowly shifting towards the blogs subscribers. All along this has been an untapped market.
Review seekers, or those looking for a good review favors blogs that has a high number of subscribers. Those who pays high dollars are not looking for Link Juice to spur up their site’s rankings. They are more interested in creating a buzz for their products, so they need as many people reading those reviews as possible. A blog which has tens of thousands of subscribers can command a very high review fee. These days, true advertisers who are looking for publicity don’t put much priority on the Page Ranks anymore.
Ways To Enhance Your Subscribers.
I don’t know if I should be or if I am fit to be writing about this at all, but a some encouragements for people to subscribe might be a good way to kick things off. I have seen many successful campaigns and contests held by blogs to get people to subscribe. Some gives away fantastic gifts to lure subscribers into their fold. If you have followed the contest between Shoemomey and John Chow, you will see how successful this campaigns can be.
Some might say it is akin to bribing. Maybe. But if it will make you feel better, why not call it a gift if gratitude, something given because you are grateful.
Use the FeedBurner Feedsmith Plugin.
For those who has just started, use the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin. On many occasions, if your blog don’t use this plugin, you won’t get the true number of subscribers. People subscribes via different Feed Readers of their choice. This plugin will detect all your subscribers from all the different Feed Readers and give you the total headcount. You might be surprised by the number of subscribers you truly have the day you activates this plugin.
And Remember, this blog accepts tips!
