I'm frequently asked this question… “what is the best way to get more blog subscribers?”
You probably already know having great content with compelling headlines, published frequently will help you increase the number of people who subscribe to your blog.
And there's a lot more you can do.
You may also know using email in conjunction with your blog is one of the best ways to get people to come back to your blog over and over again. If they love what you're writing about and it solves their problems, they'll subscribe to get your updates and return to read your articles. The biggest challenge though, is moving readers to become subscribers.
When I do blog audits, there are typically two big mistakes I see bloggers make:
1) They bury the subscription form too low on the blog's sidebar so few people see it
2) They don't ASK readers to subscribe
How to correct these two mistakes and increase your blog subscriber numbers:
- Put the email subscription form at or near the top of your sidebar so it's visible when the reader lands on your site. If you do nothing else, do this. You want the optin form visible “above the fold” and in a spot where eyes naturally move as your reader scans the page.
- Include a call to action with your optin form with a compelling reason to subscribe, like a free gift (see this post for ideas). Merely saying “Join my list” or “Subscribe to get updates” doesn’t cut it. Offer an incentive that’s too good for your reader to ignore.
Bonus tip for boosting your subscriber numbers
If your blog is built on WordPress, you can use a simple plugin called "What Would Seth Godin Do" to include a call to action on every blog post. The plugin displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and an alternate message to returning visitors. Use this plugin to invite new visitors to subscribe to get blog updates and to welcome back returning visitors, encouraging them to subscribe (if they haven’t already), comment and share your post.
You can customize each message and set how many times a visitor sees the "new visitor" message before it switches to the "returning visitors" message.
You can also set the location of the messages: at the top of the post or the bottom. I put it at the bottom (you can see it in action below) since I believe readers are more inclined to subscribe once they have read your content and determined it’s valuable enough to show up in their sacred inbox.
Since adding this plugin, I’ve seen a 15% increase in new blog subscribers. It takes a couple of minutes to install and customize and then you're good to go.
Remember…a highly visible email optin form and a compelling offer will increase the number of subscribers to your blog.
There are at least seven ways to optimize your blog to attract more subscribers. If you’d like to learn how to generate more leads and build your list with your blog, I have a special invitation for you. Join me for a 90-minute live webinar training program on how to optimize your blog to convert more readers to subscribers. Learn more and register now.
Yeah, I am guilty too of not having a great call to action in every post. I agree with giving away free stuff to get subscribers as we used to get decent results from doing that. It seems that the better you can hone in your pitch for a free report, ect. the better you do. We experimented with different wording and colors until we figured out what worked best for us.
Lots of good information here Denise. I am guilty of not having a subscribe form on my blog. I alternate ending each blog post with either a “Request a Consultation” or “download my free report” with a link to the opt in page. Still learning…
While I know about the having it at top and usually on right, I love the idea of using What Would Seth Godin do. IN middle of new theme launch and will use this on it.
Thanks for stopping by, Michele. Having the WWSGD plugin has made a big difference in the number of subscribers I get. Let me know how it goes for you.