10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers

The question I seem to be getting over and over these days is…

How did you get 6,000 subscribers in 10 months?

The answer is simple—I value subscribers more than any other measure of blog success, such as page views or raw traffic. Subscribers are the life blood of a successful blog in my opinion, and frankly, I wish I had more of them. :)

OK, that may be a bit vague.

So here are 10 specific strategies you can begin to implement today and start getting more blog subscribers right away.

1. Make it easy and obvious

As I’ve said before in more detail, make your subscription options prominent, offer an email alternative to RSS, and ask for the subscription, preferably at the bottom of each post.

2. Be laser focused

Make sure that you are primarily focusing on a particular topic, and the more specialized that topic is, the better you’ll do. It’s also key to step back and evaluate whether there are enough prospective readers in your chosen niche. It’s better to be brutally honest with yourself than to toil away and end up disappointed.

3. Offer a bribe

Relax, it’s nothing illegal. It’s an ethical bribe, in the form of a free ebook, report, e-course or audio series. Typically this only works with email subscriptions tied to autoresponders, because you want to condition delivery of the bonus on subscription.

But here’s a nifty way to do it with RSS:

If you have a WordPress blog, use the free Feedvertising plugin to link to the download page for your free gift. Since Feedvertising links only show up in the feed (and not in the post), only feed subscribers will see the link and have access to the bonus.

4. Use viral ebooks

This is a spin on the ethical bribe strategy, but instead you let other people give away your PDF ebook or even bundle it for sale with other products. The PDF in turn promotes your blog. Check out this post to see how I bundled my free Viral Copy report with a book that spent several days at the top of the Amazon bestseller list.

5. Dedicated subscription landing page

Create a page that is dedicated to nothing more than obtaining a subscription, and drive traffic to it from your blog, AdWords, or really any other source you want. You can even put it on a unique URL, and add in the ethical bribe strategy to increase signups. For more information on doing this with AdWords, read this article, and then this one.

6. Become a guest blogger

Contributing content to someone else’s blog may seem crazy, but it’s a solid strategy to gain exposure for your own blog and build your subscriber base. Just make it very clear to the blog owner that you require a very brief byline at the end of the post, with a link back to your site. And make sure it’s original content, not something recycled off of your blog.

7. Start a podcast

Start a related podcast on your subject matter, and get it into iTunes and listed in the various podcasting directories. Mention your blog in every episode and the benefits of subscribing, and try to land some interviews with prominent players in your niche. Not only will you be opening up a new promotional channel, you’re also creating bonus content that can be reused as part of your ethical bribe campaign for new subscribers.

8. Post in forums

A tried and true technique since the earliest days of the Internet is to be a helpful, proactive participant in forums that are important in your niche. People will notice that you are offering yourself up to others, and will be more inclined to see what else you have to offer with your blog.

9. Networking

This is perhaps the most overlooked strategy for gaining traffic and subscribers. Don’t badger other bloggers for links, because it rarely works anymore. Find a way to help them with something, and then eventually work that initial graciousness into a business relationship and even friendship. There are real people behind these blogs, and they respond to good will just like people do offline.

10. Cross-promotional deals

Here’s another cool way to make use of the Feedvertising plugin for WordPress.

Find a blogger that publishes related, but non-competitive content. Work out a deal where you both promote each other in your RSS feeds, using Feedvertising. If one blog has way more subscribers than the other, work out a ratio deal. Since Feedvertising allows you to create up to six rotating links, the smaller blog would promote the other blog continuously, while the larger blog would reserve one slot for the smaller blog, and use the other slots for other cross-promotion deals, affiliate links, or sponsor ads.

So there you have it, with one additional word of caution.

All of the above presupposes that you are producing the best content you can. If you honestly cannot say that you are doing your best work content-wise, start there. But afterwards, using some or all of the above will definitely increase your subscriber count.

Do You Make These Mistakes When You Write?

It’s time once again to review those nasty errors that damage our credibility when we write. Not normally a fun task, but absolutely necessary. I promise to keep you amused to diminish the pain (or at least I’ll give it a shot).

As with the last time we explored grammatical errors, I feel compelled to mention that copywriting and blogging should be conversational and engaging, and breaking formal grammatical and spelling conventions can often be a good thing. Every time I see a comment complaining about something like, oh, I don’t know… the improper use of an ellipsis or one-sentence paragraphs, I shake my head with sadness.

They just don’t get it.

Outside of specific professional or academic contexts, writing with a personal style that makes it easier on the reader is more important than pleasing Strunk and White. That said, I also believe you have to know the rules in order to break them. Plus, there are some errors that you’ll never convince anyone that you did intentionally in the name of style (outside of a joke), and even then some people will still assume you’re dumb.

So, let’s take a look at some more of those types of glaring errors that you never want to make. Thanks to reader suggestions and the aforementioned Messrs. Strunk and White, here are seven more common mistakes that can diminish the shine and credibility of your writing.

1. Loose vs. Lose

This one drives a lot of people crazy, including me. In fact, it’s so prevalent among bloggers that I once feared I was missing something, and somehow “loose” was a proper substitute for “lose” in some other English-speaking countries. Here’s a hint: it’s not.

If your pants are too loose, you might lose your pants.

2. Me, Myself, and I

One of the most common causes of grammatical pain is the choice between “me” and “I.” Too often people use “I” when they should use “me,” because since “I” sounds stilted and proper, it must be right, right? Nope.

The easy way to get this one right is to simply remove the other person from the sentence and then do what sounds correct. You would never say “Give I a call,” so you also wouldn’t say “Give Chris and I a call.” Don’t be afraid of me.

And whatever you do, don’t punt and say “myself” because you’re not sure whether “me” or “I” is the correct choice. “Myself” is only proper in two contexts, both of which are demonstrated below.

Many consider Chris a punk, but I myself tolerate him. Which brings me to ask myself, why?

3. Different than vs. Different from

This one slips under the radar a lot, and I’ll bet I’ve screwed it up countless times. It boils down to the fact that things are logically different from one another, and using the word “than” after different is a grammatical blunder.

This vase is different from the one I have, but I think mine is better than this one.

4. Improper Use of the Apostrophe

Basically, you use an apostrophe in two cases:

• For contractions (don’t for do not)
• To show possession (Frank’s blog means the blog belongs to Frank)

If still in doubt, leave the apostrophe out. It causes more reader confusion to insert an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong than it does to omit one. Plus, you can always plead the typo defense if you leave an apostrophe out, but you look unavoidably dumb when you stick one where it doesn’t belong.

5. Parallelism

Back when I talked about bullet points, one of the tips involved keeping each bullet item in parallel by beginning with the same part of speech. For example, each item might similarly begin with a verb like so:

• deliver…
• prompt…
• cause…
• drive…

When writing a list of items in paragraph form, this is even more crucial, and failing to stay in parallel can result in confusion for readers and scorn from English majors. Check out this non-parallel list in a sentence:

Over the weekend, Kevin bought a new MacBook Pro online, two software programs, and arranged for free shipping.

Do you see the problem? If not, break the list into bullet points and it becomes clear:

Over the weekend, Kevin:

• Bought a new MacBook Pro online
• Two software programs
• Arranged for free shipping

Stick the word “ordered” in front of “two software programs” and you’re in parallel. Your readers will subconsciously thank you, and the Grammar Nazis won’t slam you.

6. i.e. vs. e.g.

Ah, Latin… you’ve just gotta love it. As antiquated as they might seem, these two little Latin abbreviations are pretty handy in modern writing, but only if you use them correctly.

The Latin phrase id est means “that is,” so i.e. is a way of saying “in other words.” It’s designed to make something clearer by providing a definition or saying it in a more common way.

Copyblogger has jumped the shark, i.e., gone downhill in quality, because Brian has broken most of his New Year’s resolutions.

The Latin phrase exempli gratia means “for example”, so e.g. is used before giving specific examples that support your assertion.

Copyblogger has jumped the shark because Brian has broken most of his New Year’s resolutions, e.g., promising not to say “Web 2.0,” “linkbait,” or “jumped the shark” on the blog in 2007.

7. Could of, Would of, Should of

Please don’t do this:

I should of gone to the baseball game, and I could of, if Billy would of done his job.

This is correct:

I should have gone to the baseball game, and could have, if Billy had done his job.

Why do people make this mistake?

They could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been correct, except that the ending of those contractions is slurred when spoken. This creates something similar to a homophone, i.e., a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, e.g., of, which results in the common grammatical mistake of substituting of for have.

Ain’t this been fun?

For more tips on avoiding grammatical mistakes, check out Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb.

How to Get 6,312 Subscribers to Your Business Blog in One Day

Remember the ecommerce commercial that showed a small group hovering around a computer as they launched their new website? They cheered when the first order notification came through, and again with the second… and then freaked out as the order blips became a relentless torrent.

That’s what Adam Schwartz, CEO of Articulate, said it felt like last Wednesday when we launched their new Rapid E-Learning Blog. The blog attracted 6,312 subscribers in the 24-hour period following the launch promotion, and now has over 8,500 and counting less than a week later.

Existing businesses have incredibly valuable assets that others do not—customer and prospect lists. That being said, telling your existing customers about your new blog full of press release content and expecting them to come running is a recipe for mediocrity. If you don’t have an existing list, you can create an offer that is attractive to social media news site users and your results will be similar.

Articulate is one of the few companies I’ve continued to work with outside of my own projects in the last year, and Adam gave the green light to share the strategy we implemented. Here’s what we did, step-by-step.

1. Positioning: Articulate sells software that allows users to develop flash-based e-learning and training courses based on PowerPoint, which has become known as rapid e-learning due to the ease of use of the tools. The goal for the blog is to provide valuable content related to rapid e-learning development (outside of the software) and to establish 15-year e-learning veteran and Articulate VP of Community Tom Kuhlmann as an authority in the field.
   
   In other words, the blog is designed not to sell software directly, but to offer value to existing and prospective customers of Articulate. The halo effect of Tom’s tips over time can do nothing but enhance the Articulate brand as the definitive leader in the rapid e-learning space.
2. Cornerstone Content: Before the blog was made public, Tom developed some great foundational content in the form of a 7-part series called Rapid E-Learning 101 and a 5-part series called 5 Myths About Rapid E-Learning. A first-time visitor to the blog has plenty of well-organized and targeted content to dive into, which also acts as a motivator to get on board as a subscriber.
3. Incentive: The next step was a free ebook that became the focus of the launch promotion. Tom put together the Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Rapid E-Learning Pro, which focused on the business end of e-learning, and I added a bit of editorial input. This content is unique and valuable to corporate instructional designers because it helps them see what the true role of e-learning and training is within the larger business context. The strategies in the book allow training staff to create courses that provide a true return on investment, and are also perceived as valuable to upper management and the learners themselves.
4. Launch Email: I wrote a brief email formatted in HTML with a nice graphical representation of the ebook. This 72-word email was not designed to sell the subscription, but to sell the click through to the landing page, and was sent to a house list of both customers and people who had downloaded a free trial of Articulate software. The initial response briefly crashed the dedicated server that houses only the new blog.
5. Landing Page: The landing page consists of an ebook graphic positioned just as in the email, a brief intro, 8 bullet points related to the content of the ebook, a statement that lets the reader know they are subscribing to the blog, a call to action, an email form, and a “no spam” statement.
6. Delivery: The email subscription is powered by Feedburner’s email service, so new blog posts are automatically sent to subscribers. The ebook is delivered via the WP RSS Sticky plugin that Chris Garrett also uses. This means that people who subscribe via feed reader will also receive the free ebook.
7. Start Blogging: The launch went very well, and Tom is now perfectly positioned to become the preeminent voice in the growing rapid e-learning space. Mission accomplished, but now the real work begins. Once you’re perceived as an authority, you have a responsibility to continue to deliver, and I have no doubts that Tom is up for it.

No Customer or Prospect List?

The above is an excellent game plan for any existing business to enhance their market position with valuable content delivered via blog. But if you don’t have an existing customer or prospect email list, substitute in a social media site like Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, Netscape or some of the other small niche sites as your launch pad. The key is to offer something that people really want, surround it with other valuable, targeted content, and then continue to deliver over time to maintain and grow your subscriber base.

P.S. For those scoring at home, the promotional email drew a 10% click through ratio, which was fairly strong given that the prospect portion of the opt-in list did not require email validation to download the free software trial (in other words, there was likely a lot of junk on the list). The conversion rate on the landing page opt-in was right at 54%.