Blogging tips: tips for increasing your followers and/or subscribers (Part 2)

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If you haven't already, have a squiz at Part 1 of this post, my tips on following blogs and making sure you can be followed.

I'll be writing a post in the future which suggests ways to increase your blog following. One of those tips is to make following your blog as quick and as easy as possible. Many bloggers only have limited time, and will close out of your blog rather than hunting for a way to follow you or subscribe to your feeds. That's if they can find your blog to start with! (More on this below).

Below are some ways you can make following/subscribing easier:

• ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have your blog linked up to your profile page. I've highlighted this because it's SO important! When you leave a comment, odds are that other bloggers will want to follow you back to your blog. Many, many bloggers out there don't have their blog listed on their profile page, and are losing out on dozens, if not hundreds, of followers!!! If you haven't done this, or aren't sure what I mean, check out my earlier post here. It includes a step-by-step instruction (including screen-shots) on how to do it. Actually, this is so important, you should check to make sure you've correctly linked up even if you think you've already done it!
  

• if you have more than one blog, make sure it's obvious in your profile which is your writing blog. Most bloggers won't have the time or the inclination to click on two or three or seven different links in the search for the elusive blog related to your writing!

• include a Followers Gadget on your blog if at all possible. This is a great way to build up your blog’s following. Place the gadget high up on your blog and in an obvious place, so bloggers don’t have to hunt for it

• for WordPress users who can’t include a Followers Gadget, add the Networked Blogs widget to your blog

• always include an RSS button, particularly if you have a WordPress blog. Make sure it’s at the top of your blog, or in a place that’s readily identifiable. Many bloggers will not spend the time hunting for a button if it’s difficult to find, nor do they want to scroll right down to the bottom of your blog to find it. Some blogs have tiny RSS buttons that are hidden amongst dozens of other widgets/gadgets - I'd hate to think about how many bloggers have exited without subscribing
  

• label your RSS button. Consider including the word “free” in the title. To many beginner bloggers, “subscription” implies something you pay for, so they're reluctant to click it. Here's how I've labelled mine:

Note that a problem often arises when bloggers don't add RSS subscription buttons, and instead rely on “Subscribe by email” applications. Many bloggers don’t like to have their inbox cluttered by emails of this nature, and will close out of your blog without subscribing. And some bloggers forget to include any of these subscription links/gadgets/buttons at all, which makes them impossible to follow unless you know how to “Add a Subscription” in Google Reader (or some other nifty trick).

• check that your RSS button is correctly linked (by clicking on it). When I changed my blog URL (a whole ‘nother post in itself!), I had heaps of Feedburner issues, and didn’t realize my RSS button didn’t work until someone told me about it months later

• as I said above, don’t force people to subscribe by email! Most bloggers will simply close out of your blog without subscribing, and you’ll lose out. Include the Followers Gadget (or Networked Blogs widget) or an RSS button at a minimum. 

How about you: do you have any other tips for increasing your followers or subscribers by making following/subscribing easier?

Blogging tips: following blogs and making sure you can be followed (Part 1)

During the first part of my Crusade, a number of people mentioned how difficult they found it to follow some blogs. This issue came up so many times, I thought it would be useful to write a post to:

• help you make sure people can follow or subscribe to your blog (and give you a few tips on ways to increase your followers in this respect); and 

• give you ways to follow other peoples' blogs, particularly where there's no “Followers Gadget".

In this Part 1, I'll be concentrating on helping you make sure others can follow or subscribe to your blog, and giving you ways to follow other peoples' blogs. In Part 2, I'll give you some tips on ways to increase your followers by making it easier for people to follow and/or subscribe to your blog.

Because technology and I are not the best of friends, I’ll be using pretty general language (so forgive me if I make any mistakes in terminology etc). I’ll be focusing on Blogger, WordPress, and personal web pages in this post.

Following/Subscribing

To a lot of people, “following” and "subscribing" means pressing the “Follow” button on this gadget:

But it’s a little more than that, so bear with me.

Following or subscribing is basically a way for you to mark the location of a blog and read new blog content as it is posted. Unless there was some way for you to do this, you’d never remember which blogs you visited, or find the blogs you wish to return to again and again. You’d also spend hours physically checking blogs to find out if they’ve posted anything new since your last visit.

Followers Gadget

The Followers Gadget was introduced by Blogger as a means of social networking, and was later merged with Google Friend Connect (I’ll just call it the Followers Gadget here). It’s a pretty handy gadget, because:

• for followers - by clicking on the “Follow” button, you can be identified as a follower of a particular blog AND automatically subscribe to blog updates through the blog’s feed. See my previous post about Google Reader, which is a fantastic way to read the feed you’ve subscribed to as quickly and efficiently as possible.

• for blog owners - you can see which (and how many) other bloggers are interested in your blog and what you have to say. It’s also a means of adding subscribers to your blog feed, which means more people are reading your posts.

If you use a Blogger platform (eg, if your URL is http://yourblogname.blogspot.com), you have the option to add the Followers Gadget (go to “Design”, then “Add a gadget” then scroll down the list until you can select the Followers gadget). I have seen some Blogger users who choose not to add the Followers Gadget, but by far the majority of Blogger blogs do have this.

Many WordPress users (eg, if your URL is http://yourblogname.wordpress.com/) are not able to add a Followers Gadget to their blogs. If that is the case, you need to include other links/gadgets/buttons on your blog that allow people to subscribe to your feed (I discuss this more below).

Bloggers who use personal web pages are able to add Google Friend Connect to their sites.

What if a blog does not have a Follower’s Gadget?

If a blog doesn't have a Follower’s Gadget, there are other ways you can subscribe to that blog so you can read its posts:

(1) subscribe using RSS

• click on an RSS button (I’ve included the following button on my site). It usually has this orange square symbol and may be very tiny, so you might have to look around for it. In some blogs, the button is not actually labelled “RSS”.

• You’ll then be directed to a page similar to this one – click on the correct button depending on which reader you use (“Google” if you use Google Reader)

• Some WordPress blogs have both a “RSS – posts” link and a “RSS – comments” link, so click on “RSS – posts”

• Many WordPress blogs don’t have the orange square symbol, so look for this instead:

Then click on “entries RSS”

 

(2) click on Posts (Atom) at the very bottom of all the posts on the blog’s home page (for Blogger). This will usually take you to the same Feedburner page as clicking on the RSS button

(3) click on the Networked Blogs widget (if you have a Facebook account). I don’t use this myself at the moment, but I believe it’s fairly similar in operation to Google Friend Connect though with a Facebook interface

(4) if you have Google Reader, copy the URL of the blog you wish to subscribe to, open your Reader, click on “Add a Subscription” on the top left, and paste the URL. This subscribes you to the blog's feed in the same way as if you subscribed by RSS

(5) subscribe by email (you’ll receive an email every time a new post is posted on the blog you’ve subscribed to, which may not suit some people. However, if you wish to read every post a person publishes, this can be a useful tool)

(6) on some WordPress blogs, when you make a comment you can tick the “subscribe to this site by email” button, which has the same effect as the dot point above this

And there you have it, a number of different ways you can follow a blog.

Making sure your blog can be followed

If you want to make sure your blog can be followed, add a Followers Gadget (preferable, if possible), a Networked Blogs widget (optional), an RSS button or link (essential), and a "Subscribe by email" gadget (preferable).

And keep an eye out for Part 2 of these Blogging Tips, which will give you further tips for increasing your followers/subscribers in this respect.

How about you: do you have any following or subscribing tips, or additional ways to follow/subscribe other than those I’ve listed above?