Now that we have looked at what RSS feed is, and how to setup your own blog RSS feed and burn it, we can take a look at how best to promote your RSS news feed to your blog visitors.
First of all it is very important to have a link to your RSS blog feed very prominently, above the fold, on all of your blog posts and pages. If you look at the top right of HowToMakeMyBlog.com, you can see the “Subscribe To Feed” button which is in the blog sidebar and is featured on each and every of HowToMakeMyBlog sites and pages.
I have mentioned earlier the Comment Redirect plugin that redirects your blog first time commenters to a special “Thank You” page. Include your RSS feed link there as well. See how it is done at HowToMakeMyBlog.com by posting a comment to any of the blog articles from this blog.
Another great opportunity to promote your blog RSS feed is to use the What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress plugin. This plugin uses cookies to treat new visitors differently than returning visitors. So for example for your first time visitors you can leave a “Welcome” message on top of your blog post where you ask the blog visitor to subscribe to your RSS feed. See this plugin in action at HowToMakeMyBlog.com.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Marko,
I can’t stop reading on your blog. All great posts. This is a test for the ‘Comment redirect plugin’.
I would like to know how you put that yellow block after each post to promote your rss-feed. Is it a plug in or a ‘hook’ thing used in themis?
Regards,
Philippe
@Philippe de Tiege – Thanks for the nice comment. It is a plugin called What Would Seth Godin Do wrapped in Thesis “alert” option to give it that visible yellow block.
I just came across your blog tonight and I am finding a lot of useful information! I just subscribed to your RSS, can’t wait for more interesting posts!
Hi,
I have just installed the “What Would Seth Godin Do” WordPress plugin and I think it is a really good idea.
yep, I need a break but I seriously cant stop freek in reading!!!
Thanks you have saved me a lot of time.