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Have you noticed an inflated number on your Feedburner counter lately? Don’t worry. It is not a technical problem. Feedburner has recently started to count your FriendFeed subscribers. Previously it was counting your normal RSS subscribers and Aweber opt in subscribers. All in all it has started to count normal RSS subscribers, Aweber opt-in, and FriendFeed subscribers.
Probably this change will increase the gap between the most popular bloggers and normal bloggers in terms of social proof. Most of the bloggers still take the number of RSS subscribers as the key element when deciding about a blog’s performance. As popular bloggers have quite a lot of subscribers in FriendFeed (if they use it since very long time), their FeedBurner counters will also increase a lot.
This change also explains why all of a sudden John Chow joined FriendFeed. He regularly adds new subscribers these days. The idea is simple: once you subscribe a member, he or she will probably subscribe back.
So if you are also obsessed about the number of your RSS subscribers, do the same. Join FriendFeed, and subscribe to as many users as possible. In the end you will be able to increase the number of your RSS subscribers.
Bloggers care about their metrics. For majority, the number of RSS subscribers is one of the biggest indications as to whether your blog is worth reading or not. However, due to a special deal with Feedburner and Aweber email autoresponder, Feedburner counts email subscribers as RSS subscribers.
Hire a few people, let them create fake email accounts from various email services, and ask them to subscribe your blog via email form. I guarantee 1000 RSS subscribers in a month with this technique.
Last summer Aweber launched pop-up email sign up functionality. Every time a user visits your blog, a pop-up appears and asks you to subscribe. Quite a lot of bloggers, including the very popular ones, liked these pop-ups. A few months later I noticed significant increases in their RSS subscribers.
Do you think it is ethical or unethical? Assuming you did not aware of this before, do you feel cheated by these bloggers?
Article marketing is a type of advertising in which bloggers write articles related to their blogging topic. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the article directories. Each article contains a biography box and byline which include contact information and references for the author’s business. High quality, well-written, and unique content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the bloggers’ credibility within its blogging topic as well as attracting new readers and RSS subscribers.
There are hundreds of article directories available. However many of them are not worth spending your time. I have listed the most useful ones based on the popularity and traffic driving capabilities. You should submit your articles to these directories when you have time to do:
In Part 1 I stressed the importance of building an email list, and using an email auto-responder for your email marketing campaigns. Now it is time to talk about which email auto-responder to choose.
Which Email Auto-Responder?
There are currently two major auto-responders in the market which are Aweber and GetResponse. You can use both of them for your email marketing campaigns. They have more or less the same features. However, Aweber is quickly growing to be the standard. Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak, Chris Garret, Caroline Middlebrook prefer Aweber for their email marketing. Even though Aweber seems on the high side in terms of pricing, believe me it is worth spending every penny.
Why Aweber?
Both Aweber and GetResponse have similar features, and there is no big difference in pricing. Aweber charges $19 per month up to 500 subscribes, whereas GetResponse bills $17.95 per month. So how can you decide which one to choose? You may also ask me why all these pro-bloggers are working with Aweber while GetResponse can also serve as a good email auto-responder. Let me tell you some of the benefits of Aweber, and then you will understand clearly why GetResponse can not beat Aweber at the moment.
There is a one small deal that Aweber struck with FeedBurner, more specifically they report count of email subscribers to your blog feed! If you are trying to build your RSS subscribers, this means having your email subscribers shown as your RSS subscribers by Feedburner.
Aweber recently added a new feature where you can make email segmentation. You can track your subscribers reaction to your emails. Imagine you are a pro-blogger, and you know which readers always interested in your sales emails. Why should you bother other readers?
You can build your list faster with lightbox style web forms prepared by Aweber. Some of your readers might be upset, but your mail list will steadily grow.
What Can You Do With Aweber?
You can send engaging email newsletters using built-in newsletter templates
Publish a sign-up form to your blog (like I did for my blog, take a look at my blog’s header and sidebar)
Welcome or educate your subscribers by setting up sequential auto-responder messages. Create your own blog mentoring course.
You can manage unlimited mail campaigns.
Send blog newsletters.
Evaluate the outcome of your email campaigns with Aweber’s tracking functionality.
Integrate your shopping cart into your mail campaigns.
In Part 3 you will find a how to video guide on Aweber captured by me. Until then please subscribe to my RSS feeds so that you don’t miss any article.
Her name is Caroline Middlebrook. She is 35 years old software developer from the UK. She left her job last year in order to live her dream life. Similar to my dream, she is willing to earn her life from blogging. Actually she is very close to achieve this. She managed to have more than 2000 RSS subscribers in 8 months! She is definitely one of the most phenomenal bloggers in the make money online segment nowadays.
She was so kind to accept my interview request for April 2008 Bloghology. In order to increase anticipation for April 2008 Bloghology (Thanks to Seth Godin!), I decided not to post the entire interview here. You will find the rest of the interview when April 2008 Bloghology is launched. Please be patient until that moment!
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Caroline Middlebrook Interview
Mert: How come did you manage to become an authority blogger in such a short period of time ?
Caroline: I wouldn’t class myself as an authority blogger! Popular perhaps but I am not an authority on anything yet
I would say that there are two parts to the equation that have made my RSS readership climb fairly quickly. The first is the underlying theme in my writing that appeals to people and makes them subscribe and the second is the methods and events that have brought me the traffic in the first place.
The theme that runs throughout my writing is that of honesty and openness. I explain exactly what I have been doing in my efforts to make money online so that others can follow along if they chose to. I report my results with absolute honesty and when I fail at something (which I do a lot) I say so! I am honest in my opinions and when my opinion on something changes then I will admit that too. I am very transparent and lay things out in plain English which is what I think appeals to people.
Traffic wise I have had a great many fortunate incidents. My Twitter guide was featured on the Lifehacker blog and on the Delicious popular page. Over the months that followed those two sites alone brought me literally thousands of visitors. I was also talked about by a large number of influential bloggers such as Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak which really helped too. More recently I’ve actually had a lot of negative feedback which has ironically brought me a flood of traffic and increased my subscriber numbers too.
So to summarise, I write in an open style, and I got a lot of attention from other blogs and websites.
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It was a great experience for me to interview such an open-hearted and smart blogger. There are good food for thought for both beginner and experienced bloggers. Please sign up for Bloghology so that I inform you when it is ready. Also if you want to participate in the coming editions of Bloghology, you should sign up.
Now, please tell me what do you think about Caroline Middlebrook after having read her answer to my first interview question?
