Loading ...(I know many of you probably do a combination of these, but please choose your primary method of blog reading)
I almost 100% of the time only read blogs through my google reader, but also use twitter to alert me of new posts (I’m in my reader probably once an hour though, so I don’t miss much). The only time I ever go to a blog is if I want to leave a comment on the post I’m reading, if I want to make a note to post it on styleplus1 (my new DIGG-like fashion site!!), or if I want to bookmark it as a resource or whatever.
I ask this because this shift our visitors are making from reading blogs online to reading via a reader or e-mail means we as bloggers must evaluate how we sell advertising on our blogs. I’ve really only started thinking about this, and I still have many more site visitors than e-mail or rss subscribers, but those subscriber numbers are too big to continue to ignore.
rss subscribers NEVER see banner ads If you’re selling banner ads on your site like I am, how many of your readers don’t see them? One of my sites has about half the number of unique daily visitors in RSS e-mail subscribers – and I know that only a very small percentage of those RSS e-mail subscribers visits the site (there’s no need to), so I should in actuality consider that I have 50% more “readers” to my site than are reflected in my analytics. BUT those 50% more visitors don’t see any of the ads I’ve sold on the site. Since I use MailChimp (<--that's an affiliate link, but they are the greatest newsletter/rss e-mail service out there, I'd highly suggest giving them a try, plus you get a $30 credit when you sign up via this link!) I created a template I can show one or two tower ads in, so I am able to get some ads in front of them, but not most of the ads shown on my site...
That's a very simplistic statistical analysis, and probably not even close to being accurate, but the fact is that now is the time to be thinking outside the box when it comes to monetizing your blog. Subscribers are important, and you need to make sure you promote them in your media kit, and look at ways to monetize them by adding ads in your RSS feeds and moving beyond feedburner to a BETTER rss via e-mail service like MailChimp so you can create your own template, serve ads, and really customize your message (don’t even bother with feedblitz, they frustrated me, so did aweber).
What are your thoughts? are you already serving ads in your RSS feed? Have you thought about how to monetize your subscribers?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I'm really frustrated because I can't seem to figure out how to move my old blogger rss subscribers to my .com address…ugh! I lost a few hundred. but I've been meaning to look into putting ads in my RSS feed. btw I've been really enjoying your posts here
Howdy Grechen! I actually have Adsense ads in my rss feed, is that what you're referring to or are you talking about paid ads?
i'm really talking about adsense – or affiliate ads – unless you have a HUGE mailing list with a good percentage open & click rate, it would be hard to attract paid ads