Scraps Of Mind

Welcome to Scraps of Mind. I'm delighted to see you. Why not check out the site, and if you like what you see, subscribe to my RSS feed and get daily updates delivered to you. If you're not sure what the RSS thing is, then check out this 'RSS made easy' post. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing more of you.

Many Scraps of Mind readers have their own blogs.

Some are personal journals, but a large number are written by folk who have a strong desire to build their readership and increase their traffic.

RSS feeds are a seemingly simple way to do this. But there’s more to increasing your readership than just banging an RSS button into your side-bar and forgetting about it.

Jacob Share is a contestant in DailyBlogTips Blogging Idol Competition and he has set up a group writing project on his blog to gather RSS tips from all over the blogosphere. So I thought I’d add my five cents worth.

For those of you who don’t know anything about RSS I suggest you take a moment to read my article Keep Up-to-Date with Your Favourite Blogs Using RSS to learn what it is and how it can help you keep up with all that’s going on with your favourite blogs.

So how do you encourage your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed?

Now we come to the RSS button.

There are RSS buttons that you can use all over the Internet that you can download freely. Some are fancy and some are the classic orange icon such as in my side-bar.

The first thing I would recommend is that if your blog is not aimed at geeky or super blog-savvy readers don’t go fancy.

Most people who know what RSS is recognize the orange icon. And whilst it might not be as cool as an icon that looks like it’s sinking below the virtual waves, or one that’s beautifully colour coordinated with your blog theme, keeping it simple and straightforward is a good thing. It will help your readers to spot it amongst all your blinkies and banners and when they see it, there won’t be any confusion in their minds as to what it is.

So now, where do you stick the button?

Hey! Let’s keep it nice.

Well the prevailing wisdom says that if you want to grow your RSS subscribers you should place the button at the top of your blog. Either in your banner, or right at the top of your sidebar.

But I’m going against the prevailing wisdom.

I had my RSS button sitting right at the top of my side bar for over six months. And during that time my subscriber numbers slowly crept up to 100. It was a long, slow journey (and many thanks to all of you who were part of that journey). And when I reached 100 it was like I had hit a glass ceiling. I hung around 100-110 for about three months. It wasn’t as though my traffic wasn’t increasing because my stats were healthy and were showing a steady upwards trend. But readers weren’t subscribing to my RSS feed.

Finally I decided to stop worrying about building my RSS subscriptions and I moved the button further down on my sidebar. Down to ‘below the fold’ which means that you can’t see it unless you scroll down. And I stopped paying attention to it.

Within a matter of weeks, the number had doubled!

I thought there must be something wrong with the counter widget and I checked it out on Feedburner. Nope, the numbers were correct.

I was gobsmacked! For months I had given my RSS button pride of place on my blog and had limited success. And now that I had all but thrown it away, it was performing like a star attraction.

Is it sort of ‘a watched RSS number never grows’ thing?

Well after some thought, I noticed that where my RSS button was now located, way down in my sidebar, was roughly the same place where most of my posts finished. So readers who had read to the bottom of a post (as you are doing) found the button right there handy as they finished reading.

And that seems to make a lot more sense to me. A new reader is not going to be interested in subscribing to your blog feed until they have read at least one of your posts.

And once you’ve finished reading you look for the next place to click. I know I would rarely scroll back up to the top of the page again.

So when you’re thinking about where to place your RSS button to get the best results. Consider this: if you mainly post short articles and posts then perhaps positioning the button high up on your sidebar will attract the notice of your readers. But if your posts are usually a bit longer, then I suggest you try experimenting with locating it further down your sidebar. So it’s handy for your reader to click on straight after they have just enjoyed your killer article.

The moral of this RSS story:

Don’t always assume the prevailing wisdom is what’s best for you. Check it out for yourself and make your own call.

By the way, if you feel inspired to subscribe to my feed and get Scraps of Mind articles delivered to your Google Reader or Bloglines or even into your email box, my orange button is in the sidebar to the right or you can click on the link just under this article.

Hope this has been helpful.

Other Related Articles:

Let your Blog Stumble - it won’t hurt

Entrecard: Advertise your Blog for Free

Where to You Hang Out on the Net?

1 Comment »

It’s hard to get exposure for your blog in today’s bubbling melting pot of a blogosphere.

And it’s even harder if you’re a new blogger just starting out. Build it and they will come just doesn’t work.

Well there’s a great little blog advertising scheme that might just help you out.

It’s called Entrecard and it’s been around for about six months or so, although I’ve only just recently cottoned on to it myself.

This is the way it works.

You sign up your blog at the Entrecard site and you upload a 125×125 pixel graphic which is your blog’s advertisement.

It creates a piece of code for you that you copy and past into a text widget and display on your blog. If you look over on my sidebar you can see what I mean.

Now as you hop around the blogosphere, whenever you see an Entrecard widget you click on the bar at the bottom. This is called ‘dropping your card’. It’s the same principle as leaving your calling card with someone. And every time you drop your card you get credits in your account. The more you drop, the more credits you build up.

Other people will drop on you and they will also request advertising on your blog. When that happens, your graphic will be replaced by their graphic for a day. This also earns you more credits. And you have to approve or reject their request before it will appear on your blog. That means you don’t wind up with links to sexy photo sites or other inappropriate ads on your blog.

And what do you do with all these credits you’re accumulating?

Well you find blogs that are also Entrecard members and that you think are likely to have a readership that would be interested in your blog and you request an ad spot with them.

Easy peasy.

Now I’ve only been playing with this for a week so I’m no expert. But one of things I’ve noticed is that a lot of people put the Entrecard widget a long way down on their sidebar. Personally I wouldn’t bother placing an ad where it probably won’t be seen by anyone. So I recommend that if you decide to join, you place your widget in a spot where it gets good exposure. If people don’t want to advertise on your blog then you won’t build your credits as fast.

And if you can accumulate a lot of credits quickly you can start advertising on more prominent blogs (their credit advertising rate will be higher) and that will obviously give you more exposure.

And all of this has cost you nothing.

Plus it’s a bit of fun hunting for the Entrecard Widgets on all the blogs you go to.

So if you’re looking to get some extra exposure for your blog but you don’t have dollars to spend, why not check out Entrecard. You have nothing to lose. Just click on the Gold Bar at the bottom of my Entrecard Widget and you’ll be taken to the registration page.

Other Related Articles:

Who Wants to Increase Their Scrapbooking Profile?

Where do you hang out on the Net?

My ScrapBlogging Journey

Step by Step Digital Scrapbook
The digital scrapbooking site that’s designed especially for beginners.
Learn how to digital scrapbook and create wonderful art works from your photos quickly and easily on your computer.
No mess, no special workspace needed, no cleaning up.

1 Comment »

With all of the dust and confusion of my site crash last week I almost missed spotting this round of the Digital Scrapbooking Blog Carnival.

It’s a small carnival this round but well worth visiting and checking out the links.

You’ll find it at Stacey’s Digital Scrapbooking. So pop over and have a look.

Why not help to make the next round even bigger and better?

You can do that by submitting some links that you think would be useful to digital scrapbookers.

They can be from your own posts or from blogs that you like to read.

It’s a great way of helping blogs to grow as they get new readers.

So let’s spread the love and the scrapbook ideas around.

If you want to submit a contribution to the Digital Scrapbooking Blog Carnival (the next one is on July 1) then here is the submission form.

Other Related Articles:

What Everybody Ought to Know About Blog Carnivals

Let your Blog Stumble … it won’t hurt!

Who Wants to Increase Their Scrapbooking Profile?

If you’re a paper scrapbooker and you’d like to give digital scrapbooking a try so you too can do cool stuff like this, then click over to Step by Step Digital Scrapbook
A site designed specifically for absolute beginners to digital scrapbooking. Once you start, you’ll be totally hooked.

No Comments yet »