Maki over at Dosh Dosh very kindly tagged me with a meme as to why I would/would not display my feed subscriber count. I think high subscriber counts give legitimacy to a blog. It says, “Hey, there are people who read my blog. Why aren’t you?” Personally, I would only display the subscriber count if it were 100 or more. Below that number, displaying the feed count has a negative effect on visitors wanting to subscribe in my opinion.
A high subscriber count can counter a poorly designed, or plainly designed, site. It indicates to the visitor that despite the visual plain-ness of the site, the content must be good or excellent. Otherwise why are there so many subscribers? Conversely, a well designed site can be negatively affected by a low subscriber count. It says to the visitor that the content mustn’t be too good and that’s why there needs to be an excellent design (in order to counter the content quality).
Why should displaying subscriber counts even matter to discovering great blogs? Because we are constrained by a scarce resource–time. There are only 24 hours in a day. Anything that helps us to conclude quickly whether it is or is not worthy to spend that scarce resource on a particular site is welcomed. In that sense, feed subscriber count acts as a rule of thumb (a “heuristic”)–higher number of subscribers equals higher quality, and vice-versa.
Of course, that raises a catch-22 issue for new blogs like I Help You Blog. Displaying the feed count would be detrimental to quickly building up a subscriber base because people will assume your blog is low quality if your subscriber count is low. On the other hand, how can you increase the subscriber count if people always assume that? The answer is simply to not display the subscriber count initially until you’ve built up a respectable base of subscribers.
This forces visitors to assess the quality of your posts without having the heuristic of subscriber count available to help them to decide (to not subscribe).
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Thanks Philip, for participating! You’re the last one and this concludes the meme.
I had a lot of fun doing it and learned a lot about the subject.
According to your theory, perhaps displaying Alex King’s Popularity analyzer can be harmful when some posts are not well read or are new.
Most visitors might not bother to click on the question mark and might assume that the content is generally not well received. Probably a reason why I didn’t install it
That’s an excellent point. But I like that plugin a lot so I’ve left it! It certainly does identify the most popular posts I’ve made and it increases the exposure of those posts.
Philip, this is an interesting idea, and certainly fitting for somebody in the professional blogging business. I just started reading your blog after finding a reference in the blogosphere, and think some of your targeted ideas will help me as I slowly change the focus of my own blog. That you are a fellow New Yorker is a bonus as well!
One thing that strikes me, however, is the general emphasis on numbers. I am a qualitative researcher, and have a certain suspicion of numbers and statistics (as I know how often and how easily it is to crunch data depending on the intentions of the person providing the information). While I know that numbers and statistics are important, I sometimes wonder to what extent they really make a difference outside of bragging rights. Regardless, congrats on your great numbers for such a new blog.
Good point. Maybe I should implement this in my blog, just to see how it will work out.
I’ve heard this stated before but never quite as well. Bloggers need to consider the various queues that convince potential readers to either stay or come back. The feed count chicklet that tells the world that you have a whole 4 or 5 subscribed readers is one of those.
Phillip, 143 subscribers in less than 2 months since launch is quite impressive! It’s a nice acknowledgment of the quality posts you’ve been putting up. Congrats!
One thing I’d love to see… what’s the sliding scale for having a “worthy subscriber count”? A one-month old blog is impressive with 100 subscribers… a one year old blog with 100 subscribers is not impressive.
What do you guys think of this (overly) simple rule of thumb:
100 subscribers for every month of existence
Sure, the subscriber count’s growth is hardly ever linear, and yes, different types of blogs (personal v. problogging) warrant different scales…. but I think the 100-per-month metric is a decent starting point.
What does everyone else think?
Cheers,
Greg
100 subscribers per month might be reachable. I always think it’s good to set high targets because if you don’t hit the moon, you’ll still land among the stars. Corny, but oh so true.
BTW.. just checked out your website Greg, it looks really awesome!
Greg, thanks for the compliment but there are others who have started off with a far bigger bang. I think Matt Coddington got around 1,000 subscribers in less than 2 months over at Net Business Blog.
One hundred a month works for me! Actually, that’s higher than what I would expect. But, hey, aim for the stars and you might get the moon (is that what you meant to say Maki?
). I would say a goal of one subscriber a day on average is great for the starting blogger.
Of course, if you market your blog aggressively using press releases, pay per click, link bait like my 101 ideas post, emailing other bloggers, you’ll do much better than 100 subscribers a month.
Just as a point of reference, the 101 ideas post hit the front page of del.icio.us for most of Monday and sent over a few thousand visitors. Of those, I got 50 new subscribers and a bunch of inbound links.
If you can do a couple of those types of pieces a month then your 100 subscribers a month goal is totally attainable. Problem is, of course, not every attempt to create great content succeeds in generating a lot of coverage.
I’ve been debating this question for awhile and am leaning toward putting my feedcount on my blogs.
As for the 100 subscribers per month, I think that really depends on the nature of your blog. A general interest blog like this (every blogger is potentially interested in a blogging blog) should expect to grow faster than a special interest blog that has a much more narrow audience (like mine). That said, I do think setting some goals is a good idea.
Kivi,
That’s a good point. Take a look at the popular blogs in your niche and see what their subscriber counts are as a comparison. That would give one an idea of what the average established blog has. You can base your decision to display or not to display on that as well.
I think Kivi and Philip hit it right on the head. Subscriber counts are going to vary greatly by topic and should be compared to one’s peers. You can’t apply a single rule to all when topics vary so greatly in potential audience. My guitar related blog is never going to compete with an SEO blog, for example. In addition, each topic’s audience may vary in terms of the “sophistication” of its audience. While one topic’s audience may understand/appreciate the value of subscribing to feeds or email updates, another’s may not.
This is actually a debatable topic. Do you really think 100 is a optimum feedcount? I think its something over 1000
Others might say 2000.. 3000.. 10000 and so on!
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100+ subscribers a month might be reachable. I think it’s good to set high targets because if you don’t hit the moon, you’ll still land among the stars. Standing still = going backwards!
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