This is a guest post by Brandon Connell from BrandonConnell.com
If you are reading this post, it means that you are seriously curious about what I have to say, and want to find a few magic bullets to make money blogging. It’s good you are here then, because I am going to give you some gems to make your blog a huge success.
The secret to blogging success is building up your RSS subscribers list. That should be your ultimate goal, but not the immediate need that will make you money right now. It is however, what I am going to focus on in this article. Long-term cashflow should be your end-goal if you are blogging for income.
Before I release my secrets to you, let me volunteer that I am sitting here writing this while friends and family are out swimming in 100 degree weather. Not that I’m hurting in ice-cold air conditioning or anything… But the fact is that blogging takes work.
Even as I make a living from my blog, I make the time to write new content instead of jumping on every chance to have fun.
1. RSS Subscribers Like Incredible Content
There has been lots of debate online about the length of posts that work best on blogs. I have written posts as small as 300 words, and posts as long as 5,000+ words.
More recently, I have written longer articles. The reason for this is that it allows me to go into a topic deeply, and not worry about leaving out key points that I could have made.
Let’s face it, Google and other search engines also love lengthy posts. They thrive on unique text after-all. The longer your articles, the higher the chances that they turn up on the first page of SERPS (search engine results pages) for a few different search terms. More rankings equal more potential subscribers to your blogs RSS feeds.
2. RSS Subscribers Hate Spam
The thing about RSS subscriptions is that they guarantee an email from Feedburner, or other delivery method, which gives them direct access to your blog articles. Why does this matter? Lots of affiliate bloggers spam their newsletter subscribers with junk affiliate emails constantly.
I cannot tell you how many times I was forced to unsubscribe from a newsletter because it only sent affiliate hype letters and reviews. This really eats at me because I have gone out of my way to only give personal updates and top quality articles in my newsletters.
Of course, if you want to increase your income, you can take up my place on quality content newsletters only. Just because they are top quality articles doesn’t mean that you are unable to include a few small advertisements within your newsletter. It’s the stupid “Johnny made $10,000 in 48 hours” crap that makes people wish they kept their email addresses to themselves.
3. RSS Subscribers Are Loyal
If someone subscribes to your RSS feeds, it means that your articles have struck a chord with them. Why did this happen? Chances are they found you on a guest post somewhere, or they happened across your blog and found some great reading materials.
To duplicate this kind of activity, it is important to guest post and blog hop on like-minded blogs. I know that this has been said so many times, but the problem is that many of you simply have not listened and are now wondering why your blog is lacking traffic.
When I guest post on ProBlogger here and there, I end up with a hundred or more new subscribers to both my newsletter and my rss feeds. Imagine what would happen if you guest post on at least 3 blogs every week. Your new-reader count would go through the roof, and your blog comments would follow.
4. RSS Subscribers Like Secrets
To gain the attention of people who would end up being subscribers, you need to be open with your knowledge like I am open with you right now. Share the wealth of information in your brain so that others don’t have to learn it the hard way.
This is the information age. That’s why you could launch a product and make big bucks every month. People want information provided to them in an easy to read and understand format. Provide free information in that format on your blog, and your subscriber numbers will rack up into the thousands.
5. RSS Subscribers Like Celebrity
One of the biggest reasons I was able to have success was that I already had a name for myself. This didn’t give me a major advantage in the blogging world, but it enabled me to make thousands of dollars consulting for Celebrities.
You can gain some “celebrity” that WILL help you in the blogging world by partnering up with big bloggers that have created a name for themselves.
It is rather simple to network with major bloggers. Most of them will have a contact form on their blog. Come up with an idea that will benefit them greatly, and you will benefit from their existing brand when they go to bat for you.
Are You A Subscriber?
Do you subscribe to the standards that I listed? Are they in your belief system? If not, making these changes will dramatically improve your blog. After employing these tactics, you will see a huge increase in subscriber counts within a 3-month time period.
Top 10 Search Terms:
• wealthy bloggers • secrets of the wealthy
All great tips. A lot of us fail to understand that our RSS subscribers are the persons who make our blog stand out if we have a lot of them and by displaying the counter on our blogs. We have to make sure not to disappoint them and be sure to give them what the want.
Great post, I really enjoyed it.
You’re right. Those are the subscribers that will get everything you publish, and are truly dedicated to what you have to offer.
It is very tempting to write articles that aim at providing some instant monetary gratification but a very good quality article is worth 10 of those, even more in the longer run.
It is stupid but many bloggers make the mistake of sticking with this instant gratification trap and that sometimes lead to poor content.
….and what’s upsetting is that a lot of bloggers start out the right way, then change after they get subscribers. This turns off many of the original loyal readers.
In most times, I found it very difficult to write short articles when it is a topic I know very much about. Thanks a lot for this awesome additional tips to what has been said by Conell
Great post.For last few months I have concentrating on building my RSS subscribers list.From your post I have learn what are the things I should avoid to make them happy.
Right. It isn’t enough to just build them up, but make them happy as well.
That is practically impossible to have lots of rss subscribers if you don’t make them happy! You have to be creative and make your content interesting in order to maintain the number of your subscribers. Brandon, thanks for sharing this info – I think I will change my tactics a little bit. Very helpful post
Good information! True, it is not enough just having good content, people need to find you too! 🙂 Some month ago I did not even know what an RSS subscribers list was and see now you, smartbloggerz is giving me such detailed info and tips!
Luckily, it’s easy to get real traffic. But you have to make sure that the great content is there waiting for them when they arrive.
Well said, Anything shared from celebrity or famous personality may go viral. Many out there are ready to subscribe and read till last word share by them. I too use to read each and every post shared by Matt Catt.
Celebrity is definitely a great thing to have. You can also borrow it though, which is a form of leverage.
Good tips. These are all essential points that should be kept in mind before creating and publicizing a blog. Loyal RSS subscribers can help a lot in the long run, so we should aim at impressing them out.
Thanks Garish, rss subscribers really are that important for long-term success.
This is great eye-opening post.I subscribe those people who do not send spam to my email.I like to blog posts via email,but some bloggers wants the short cut,send craps and lower their reputation
You generally get what you subscribed to when you request rss by email, so spam is rare in that case.
All great tips mate, it’s all about writing quality content and writing at moderate pace so your RSS subscribers wont unsubscribe from your RSS Feed
I wouldn’t say moderate really. Just consistent. If someone signed up for your rss by email, and you write daily posts, then they knew what they were asking for. Quality is a must though.
Blogging does take work. Expecting instant fame and a large paycheck immediately after starting a blog is foolish. It’s interesting that you said you were blogging while the rest of your family is out having fun. Sometimes those are the decisions writers need to make if we want to become sucessful. If you’re not willing to put in the work to provide your readers with quality content, you simply won’t have many readers.
Hi Jane. Right, it’s a lot of work. Some people underestimate how much work blogging really is. And funny, they do think there will be instant money.
A lot of really great tips here, and it offers a lot of insight into your RSS subscribers. I’ve never considered myself one simply because I only subscribe to one or two lists, and that’s it. But then, the more I read this, I realized that yeah, I *am* a subscriber; I just demand a LOT out of the lists I do subscribe to. I’m highly selective because I don’t have a lot of time to devote, so there has to be great quality, streamline their information, and a host of other things I look for.
Now, I think I’m going to tailor my feed so that it would be a list I would subscribe to! I never approached it that way.
Hi Delena,
I always think of things in the form of a customer. How would I like it? That’s how I present myself to my readers, and customers. It’s a good thing to look at your own work and notice if there is anything you can improve upon.