Every blogger wants to increase their subscriber count, but I have realized to increase your subscriber count you need to find out why your readers subscribe to your blog. Yeah you write great content and they subscribe. But what if you are writing good content and seeing no results than what do you do?

Find out why your readers subscribe to your blog? So you can write what they want and get more subscribers.

1. You motivate them – Sometimes people subscribe to your blog because you motivate them. Either by showing them your income, or sharing your experience. You motivate them, and they wish to be successful like your site some day.
2. They enjoy your company – Well you are interesting. Your readers love the way you talk. They like your tone. They read your blog for fun and they enjoy every bit of it. They know you from some social media like Plurk, and they like to see what you are talking about.
3. They want your knowledge – They want to know what you know. They like to learn everything from you. So if I am talking about marketing, you want to learn it. If I am talking about customizing wordpress, you want to learn it. Your readers want to do the same thats why they subscribe.
4. They love freebies – If you are giving away something for free. They want it. Alot of readers subscribe to your blog because they want your goodies and freebies that you are offering.
5. They want to stay two steps ahead of you – Yes alot of the times your competitors subscribe. Well I subscribe to my competitors blog just to stay updated and see what they are doing. Because I don’t want to stay behind, I want to stay ahead of them. The only way I can do that is if I keep up with them, so I know what speed to put myself on.

Now those are the reasons why your readers subscribe to your blog. So what should you do? Most people will already know what they need to do, but here are some tips to get you started.

1. Start Giving – People love freebies, so why don’t you start giving them freebies. Be generous, and try to share some stuff that you know. Your knowledge won’t decrease if you share, but you will only get better.
2. Be Interesting – I have came across alot of blogs that have no tone in their writing. I mean come on people lets be realistic. I don’t want to go on a site and read 1000 words that are in blah tone. Make it interesting, funny. Whatever you do just grab my attention. Read my post on why people don’t read your blog that will help.
3. Be the Leader – Try to initiate things. I have said that multiple times. Don’t be a follower. Try to innovate. Be imaginative and Be creative.

Now that you know why your readers subscribe to your blog, give them what they want, so more of them subscribe. Also check out my post about How you can find new RSS Subscribers for your blog.

Well, over the 6 months period, I have seen Balkhis (my baby) grow. The growth has surprised many along with myself. Why? Because the site is doing very good. Revenue, subscirbers, traffic and everything is increasing. I kinda analyzed a few of my tricks and look for some on other blogs as well. Than I decided to write this article because I know some bloggers take RSS Subscribers as a motivation, and if they don’t get alot of success, they tend to quit or pay less attention to their blog.

Personally, I don’t let any opportunity pass by. I will try to get as many subscribers as I can. Thats how most bloggers are, but how many are successful? Not all…

So read on this post and you might find some of my tips helpful because I will answer the question how can you find New RSS Subscribers for your blog.

If you haven’t noticed in your stats, you should see that you are getting a decent amount of traffic, but your RSS Subscribers are not increasing, so your first place to find your new RSS Subscribers for your blog is inside your own blog.

First thing you should do on your blog is make your RSS icons more noticeable. I am not saying make it 500 x 500px. Just place it towards the top, preferably on the first fold. I see so many bloggers who have their RSS Feeds toward the bottom of the blog. Even worst, they don’t even have a button. They just have a link in their meta box. So they might get 5000 unique visitors a month and still only have 25 subscribers. You should make your RSS Button attractive. Give it its own style. Check out some of the Best Design Practices for RSS and Free RSS Icon collection. The reason why I say that you should make your RSS link a button is because images catches more attention. They stand out among the rest of the blog because blogs are mostly text. If you have your RSS Button a link, it won’t be as noticeable, so you are losing the subscribers that you can possibly have. So by just making this simple change to your blog design, you can find New RSS Subscribers.

Second thing you can do is have more than one option. What do I mean by that? Well I see alot of blogs are offering RSS Feeds. Some bloggers just don’t want to take an initiative of joining a new service therefore they just use the default wordpress feeds. Which looks something like the image below:

Plain, and Boring. You only have one option to subscribe. Not so good. Whereas if you use feedburner you have so many other options. You give your users a way to subscribe via Google feeds, Newsvine, Email, Yahoo and more…

The bottom line is that you give your users more options. What that does is before your reader would have to check your blog via XML Feeds, but now he/she can subscribe via his favorite service (the one he/she uses the most). Or even by email. You just need to have those options available, because the more options you have available, the better your chances gets. So consider joining Feedburner and have all the options available. Like I have on Balkhis. I can assure you that alot of your readers who were reading your blogs and weren’t subscribed will start to subscribe to your blog, and you will get New RSS Subscribers. Even new readers who visit your blog will see the options available and take the time out to subscribe to your feed through their favorite RSS reader.

Another thing you should do is make sure that your feeds are discoverable. Basically all websites that have feeds like sites run by wordpress and other scripts have this feature built in the design, but sometimes designers accidently remove it.

Basically in your browser you will see a rss icon next to your url. Alot of people use that to subscribe to your blog, but if your blog don’t have it you might be losing subscribers. So make sure you check on that.

Change your RSS feeds to Full RSS Feeds – I have had my argument on this issue on this post, but over the past I have seen that full RSS feeds tend to do better. Because people subscribe more if they get the entire thing because it saves them time. Readers don’t want to read half of your post via rss than the other half on your blog. So if you have full rss feeds available then you increase your chances of getting New RSS Subscribers.

A key thing that I notice that works is that you give special bonus to RSS Subscribers. Some people do random contests every month, some people give away ebooks. You know what I give away. I give away one customized wordpress design every month to my lucky RSS Readers. This program is called Pimp My Blog if you wish to read up on it. When you do this, people tend to subscribe. I get so many new subscribers because they want to win the Pimp My Blog. I know I subscribed to some blogs just to get their ebooks. Why? Because I read the person’s blog, and I like their content. So I want to see what else they know. Therefore I subscribe to get an ebook. Now if I am doing it, and I am a normal reader, so there are other people who are doing it too.

Promote your RSS Feeds. Can it get any more simple? Just promote it. No one said you only have to put your rss feed link on your blog only once. No put it whereever you like. Heck I will put one right here just so you can subscribe to Balkhis. Well if you notice, I try to put my feed URL in alot of places. First it is in the first fold. Then it is below every post. Then it is in Comment Relish Plugin. It is in alot of other places as well. Sometimes it is in some of my posts that recieve alot of traffic.

But don’t limit yourself just for your own blog. Be creative. Sometimes people put their feed url as their url when they comment on other blogs. I remember one of my top commentators once had it. Also when you are writing guest posts on other blogs, you can ask the blogger if you can include your feed url. If you are writing articles on ezinearticles or somewhere you can include your feed url. Like I said, successful blogger needs to have an open mind and must be creative. So be creative.

This last option is only for people who run a blog that targets other than webmaster audience. I never had this issue because most of my readers know what RSS is, but I will write a RSS educating article in the near future. You need to Educate your Readers. Some of you who target non-tech savvy people can potentially be losing alot of RSS Subscribers because your readers don’t know what RSS is. So educate them. Write a breif article explaining what RSS is and how it is beneficial for them, and you will get New RSS Subscribers. Now I always like people to be original and creative, but sometimes it gets tough on people when they are trying to write a guide article. Use Wikipedia, or some other site.

Well these are the ways that I found that helped me getting new RSS Subscribers. Ofcourse I will use my own advice and add my RSS Link. Subscribe to Balkhis RSS feeds, they are full feed and you should know by know that I hate spam.

Wordpress has announced its release for version 2.6.1 on Aug 15. I have updated my blog and tested it out therefore I am writin this post to let you guys know that it is available.

Who should download it? If you are unhappy with 2.6 than download as stated in the Official Release Post in Wordpress Blog. But if something is not working for you than you should try out this release.

They have fixed alot of minor bugs. Including the one that I mentioned.

A whole lot of other minor bugs were fixed. Look here for Details.

Knowing me, a new wordpress is out and Balkhis is out to upgrade because I like to get it. So now I have it. I see that my problem is fixed, so that is good.

Download Wordpress 2.6.1 Now

You have a blog, and so does Him, him, him, him, and her too. Now what makes your blog different from theirs is that no one reads your blog. What a cold harsh fact, but its true. You know it. Here let me tell you what could be the reasons why people don’t read your blog.

1. You have nothing to say – Your blog is empty! Well maybe not. You have 5 posts. Or you have 100 posts which are extinct. Meaning you haven’t updated your blog in ages. People look at your first post and the date. If they see the post is old, the automatic reaction would be whether the information is still good. Once they have put the first doubt on your post, they won’t trust anything what you are saying later on. Next, why in the world would someone want to read a blog which hasn’t been updated in ages. If you don’t care about your own blog, why should they care about it. You think your audience is that stupid who will just visit you and click your ads even when you don’t update your site? Pfft.
2. They get no benefit from reading your posts – Yup I just said their is nothing in it for them. No one wants to know how you survive with your 9-5 job. If you have a MMO blog than talk about making money online not about you spending $3 to get your lunch at McDonald from their $1 menu. Write something that benefits them. Perhaps a tutorial, or share your past experience in the niche.
3. You don’t make $30,000 / month from your blog – Well the only way people will read your blog even if it sucks and have no use is when you have insanely high income with proof. You have insanely high number of subscribers. You have high rankings in social media networks. Basically I am saying that unless you don’t have the high numbers or you aren’t a celebrity people won’t waste their time on your BS. So either make something like youtube or bigger and sell it to Google for a few million dollars, or just face the fact no one is reading your blog.
4. You Whine too much – You are whining about your traffic how it is seeing a downfall. You are whining that you are not making enough money. You are whining that your business partner screwed you over because you are a dumbass. No one cares. Stop whining and work on making it better.
5. P A S S I O N – That spells to be passion. And you don’t have it. Well maybe for sitting around you do, but it sure is not for blogging. Make your posts interesting will ya? Add some pictures to it, interesting words, give it your voice. Show your readers that their is a human writing this post and it have errors. Not a computer with high vocabulary (which half of the people don’t understand). Just make your post interesting not some dreading peice of words that is keep going.

Damn it must suck for you. You are doing all these things wrong, and some are not even in your control. Well there are a few that are in your control, and I am not sure exactly sure if I can help you. But I sure can give you some tips that might get you some loyal readers.

1. Write 1 post every day – Yup try to write one or more posts every day. If you update your blog weekly than do that if that is what keeps you going. But I am hoping if you are updating weekly you have some excellent content. Or bunch of new posts.
2. Help your users – Don’t be snobby. Try to share what you know. I mean you didn’t just learn it all. You probably analyzed others, wasted your time experimenting with techniques. Why not help others. Trust me you won’t get left behind, but people will love you so much they will help you move forward by simply making your blog more popular.
3. Can’t help you with #3 – If you don’t make $30,000 / month or you are not Bill Gates. Just stop writing BS content. Write good content and quality content. Thats the only way people will read your site.
4. Stop Whining Already – Stop whining already. Instead of showing people your 50 visitors a day stat screenshots, why don’t you save those and work on improving them. Here is the 13 ways I promoted my Blog to Success. Take it as a guide not an ultimatum. Feel free to try other things. But don’t whine. It won’t help you….
5. Be Passionate – Don’t make it seem like that Passion is just another word in the dictionary for you. Make it so people get into your post. Like you are in this one So at the end of your post they don’t say ah finally its over. The reaction instead should be “what? its over already.”

I hope you will not take this post offensive at all. This was just in response to a few emails that I get every now and again which ask me to promote users and when I visit their sites, there is nothing there that I find interesting. So make your site interesting and make sure you have all the above before asking me to write about you for FREE!

I got a private Plurk message with a question which is a winner? Content or Backlinks? Often that I see people argue on this subject. Some say Content is King, and others say without backlinks (Marketing) content is worthless.

I have done SEO for all of my sites either by myself, or with help from other experts. Now when you are making a website, you would think how will I attract visitors to my website? Now I will give you a sample scenario answer that you will get:

SEO Expert 1: You need keyword rich content to attract your users to your website. With time, you should rank high in search engines.

SEO Expert 2: You need high backlinks counts, so you rank high in search engines. Adapt a powerful link-building strategy and start your website.

Syed Balkhi: Both of you are wrong. You need keyword rich content and along with the content you need powerful link-building strategy. Read on the post to see why?