My blog, YoungPrePro, recently surpassed its first 1000 subscribers, and there are a lot of lessons I learned along the way. Below you’ll find ten that come to my mind right away.
1. Your Subscribers are Your Most Important Readers
I learned this lesson the hard way, and if I had knew this I would be having far more subscribers than I have now.
I didn’t focus on gaining blog subscribers when I started blogging. All I wanted was to be getting a lot of daily visitors. Later I started seeing the importance of having blog subscribers as opposed to having daily visitors. Your daily visitors can stop visiting your blog after a sign of inactivity from you for some time, but your subscribers will always receive blog posts from you as long as they’re subscribed. On top of that subscribers also have a deeper relationship with you.
2. Content is King
I have disputed this statement once or twice, but after seeing the effect of writing great content I realized how important content is.
I have discovered I get more subscribers anytime I write a great post that can impact the lives of my readers. Sure they take a lot of time to prepare, but the results are worth it.
I get triple my usual traffic anytime I write a great post and I also end up being featured and interviewed in so many places, and this eventually boosts my traffic, reputation and brings in more subscribers.
3. Your Design Matters
I am a a guy who didn’t want to spend any money building my blog, except for my hosting fees, I used a lot of free themes for my blog and I later become unsatisfied which led me to changing my theme several times.
I went on with this for some time and I decided to give a premium theme a try. After I started using a premium theme on my blog I noticed a significant increase in my traffic and in my subscriber count. So yeah the investment was worth it.
4. Marketing is a Must
I blogged for the first few months with less than 50 subscribers, I didn’t do much to promote my blog and this had a great impact on the success I had. After that I realized that content can’t do the trick alone, and that you have to invest in marketing your blog too.
I started guest posting as much as I could, and this had a very positive impact on my subscriber count. The good thing is that the increased traffic I get from promotional activities tends to stick around month after month.
5. Networking is a Must
You will have heard people talking about you networking with other bloggers or having blogging buddies. I also had some blogging buddies who I connect with on a regular basis and as a result of this I am included when they write a new list. This alone has helped me gain some subscribers and it also helped me gain thousands of dollars in affiliate sales.
It might feel weird to try to connect with other people online, but believe me, having strong relationships with people inside your niche can go a long way to improve your subscriber count and your blog overall.
6. Having Goals is Important
I might be a little bit ashamed to say this, but my goal was to have a minimum of 20,000 subscribers before the end of 2010. Even though this goal is unrealistic (now I know!), it still had a great influence on getting my first 1000 subscribers – first, it made me work harder to improve my subscriber count and second, it kept me motivated not to quit.
7. Traffic is not Everything
My subscriber count is only a fraction of the traffic I get and I have realized with time that getting traffic is not everything. Conversion is what matters.
Getting more subscribers to your blog is not all about you focusing on how to get more traffic but how to convert that traffic to subscribers. There are a lot of blogs with less traffic than I have yet they have more subscribers than I do. Why? Because they’re good at converting traffic to subscribers.
8. Social Proof Works
When I got over 800 subscribers I started displaying my subscriber count and I have since noticed a boost in the rate I am getting new subscribers.
People love to be involved and they don’t love threading a path alone, they want to be assured that what you preach works and there is no better way to convince them than to let them know that there are tons of other people already subscribed.
9. Making Subscribing Easy is Very Important
One thing that amazes me is that over 700 of my subscribers are email subscribers. It is a major mistake to think that enabling RSS feed subscription alone is the way to go. Many of your readers don’t know what RSS is but there is hardly any one of them who doesn’t have an email. Don’t let people begin to know what RSS is before they can subscribe to your blog. Rather, make subscription available in any format you think they will like.
10. Feedback Matters
Many of us only care about getting subscribers, but we hardly care about retaining them. Another lesson I learnt from gaining my first 1000 subscribers is that what you think about your blog is not what matters but what your readers think.
I once got an email from one of my subscribers who told me that he was about to unsubscribe and that particular email would be his last communication. He told me I have been writing a particular type of post lately (which is true) and that he was tired of receiving that same type of post. He also told me that it is important to be alternating the type of posts I write. I took this reader’s suggestion and I saw a boost in my subscriber count.
Conclusion
Your subscribers are the lifeline of your blog because if every other thing collapses, they will still be there. The above are 10 lessons I learned from gaining my first 1000 subscribers. I hope you can use them to increase your own subscriber count.
About the Author: Onibalusi Bamidele is a 16-year-old entrepreneur living the Internet lifestyle and the founder of the young entrepreneur blog, YoungPrePro.com. Make sure to subscribe to his blog to get all his updates.
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