Want to find out how to boost RSS subscriber conversion? I did, but I hardly found any information about it online!

Besides having an obvious call to action above the fold and getting to [social news site]‘s front page, the blogosphere doesn’t much discuss how to convert more readers to subscribers.

I’d been meaning to test my RSS subscription page for a while, and finally got around to it. Here’s what the old page looked like:

The newsletter top

The newsletter bottom

The RSS subscription page was way too busy!

Notice the loads of links on the page? There’s the sidebar navigation, the breadcrumbs, the main navigation…

Additionally, the benefits copy is above the calls to action, which pushes them below the fold.

The conversion rate theory and the execution

My hypothesis was that by eliminating the distractions I would increase conversions. In other words, I’d eliminate the links on the page and move the benefits below the calls-to-action.

The reasoning for moving the benefits copy was that if someone clicked to view the subscriptions page, they were probably already pretty convinced and should be shown the conversion form and button immediately.

People who were still hesitant once they got to the page would be able to scroll down and read the benefits copy. That’s also why I moved the reassurance text (“You can unsubscribe with a single click, anytime”) below the form.

Finally, I did one more thing, which wasn’t originally in the plan, but which my limited HTML/CSS/Photoshop skills forced: I added testimonials into the left-hand sidebar. I’d initially planned to get rid of the sidebar, but that broke the page’s alignment and looked bad.

(Since my site is powered by WordPress, I used this Google Website Optimizer-Wordpress workaround to be able to use GWO. That’s because I never had a successful experience using GWO with WordPress, partly because GWO isn’t designed for sites that use a content management system, because I have a custom theme, and because many of the plugins are bad quality.)

Here’s what the page looked like after I edited it:

The new signup page

And here are the results:

That’s right, the variation outperformed the original by 56.3%—I added nine points of conversion to my overall conversion rate!

Methodology

I want to mention how conversions were measured. The limits of Google Website Optimizer (GWO) forced me to only measure one goal, so I chose the email subscription instead of a click on the orange button.

What that means is that I don’t know the difference these changes made on conversions for people clicking on the RSS button. Or should I say, this test didn’t reveal the difference these changes made…

Initially, my goal was to measure results comprehensively. After a fair bit of struggling, I followed the instructions on GWO’s help site and altered their code and mine so that both email subscriptions and RSS button clicks would be counted.

I launched the test and was happy until I discovered that something was causing the pages to load very slowly. I’m talking about 30 seconds for a page with the main functionality and 60+ seconds for full load.

Despite that, it seems some people did wait (or didn’t have this problem?) and early results of the test looked like this:

Notice the 11/11 conversion rate for the variation? That’s right, a 100% conversion rate for the variation! And why not? If visitors clicked my sidebar link to go to the subscriptions page (i.e. this was highly motivated traffic), and they saw a simple page without distractions, and with a very easy conversion process, doesn’t it make sense that they’d then convert?

Sure, it’s probably just a lucky streak and with more traffic we would have likely seen the conversion rate drop to 90% or such, but the point is that the no-distractions page still kicks butt—and takes names.

Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t solve the load time problem, though. So I started a new test, only measuring a single goal: email subs. And that’s where the data above comes from.

Another very interesting finding is that, contrary to the common situation of email subs being more numerous than RSS subs, it seems my techie audience prefers RSS. If about 30% are converting by email, and the no-distractions page gets say 90-100% conversion rate, then potentially 60-70% of my visitors prefer RSS subscriptions.

Of course, I’ll need to test some more to find out!

Want to help other bloggers and email marketers increase RSS conversions? Share your own experiences with RSS conversions below!

This guest post is by Gab Goldenberg, author of the advanced SEO book and The Beginner’s Guide To Usability Testing.
If you liked this post, get Gab’s posts by email or RSS -free- plus enjoy the subscriber only downloads!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Bumped My RSS Conversion Rate from 16% To 25%

This question (or variations of it) hit my inbox 3 times in 24 hours from different people so I thought I’d tackle it as a post instead of individual replies.

Let me start by saying that this problem can be frustrating. You see your RSS subscriber number growing by your actual visitor numbers remain steady – as do your comment numbers. It can actually feel like you’re wasting your time – I remember myself feeling kinda like this guy when I first noticed this happening to me:

Image by Sybren Stüvel

However all is not lost.

There are a number of points that I’d like to make in responding to this question about RSS subscribers not visiting a blog. I hope that they give those facing this problem a little hope, encouragement and also a few ways forward.

1. A subscriber that never visits is better than a one off visitor who never returns

I had one blogger recently tell me that he’d removed the option to subscribe to his blog via RSS from his blog because he didn’t want to ‘give away’ his content. He wanted people who read his content to ‘pay’ him by visiting his blog (and earning him money from his advertising) and he saw RSS subscribers as ‘freeloaders’.

My response to him was that I’d rather have a subscriber who rarely visits my actual blog than a one off visitors who never returns because they have no way of keeping in touch.

While a subscriber might not actually visit your blog they are a powerful connection to have. My reasons for this will hopefully become evident in the points that follow.

2. Every post you put in front of a subscriber is an opportunity to reinforce your brand.

RSS subscribers are opting in to receive your content. When they hit ‘subscribe’ they are putting themselves inside your sphere of influence and are asking you to teach, inspire and communicate with them.

Each time you hit publish on a post and a subscriber sees something that you’ve written you have the potential to deepen the relationship, trust and influence that you have with your subscriber. While this might not have an immediate pay off in terms of advertising revenue – it can have a long term ‘pay off’.

3. RSS subscribers are Influencers

RSS is used by a smallish percentage of the population (around 11% at latest reports).

While the percentage may be smallish – I have a suspicion that they are a reasonably tech savvy and influential bunch of people. I’m guessing here – but I suspect that those who use RSS are also likely to have blogs themselves, they’re more likely to be into social networking, messaging and bookmarking tools.

This makes RSS readers a potentially very influential audience – capable of spreading news of your posts and blog throughout the web very quickly.

4. Making the Mind shift from Traffic to Influence

When I started blogging one of the main indicators that I looked at when measuring the success of my blog was traffic. If I had a day with lots of visitors I was happier than if I did not have anyone visit my blog.

While traffic is still important to me – I’ve noticed lately that I’m checking my visitor stats less than I used to. These days I’m increasingly interested in ‘influence’.

I don’t mind so much if someone reads my content on my blog, in an RSS reader or in some other tool – what matters to me is that people are reading it, that in doing so they interact with me, that they are drawn into some sort of ‘relationship’ or ‘community’ around the content.

My reason for this is that I’m finding that while traffic can be monetized directly – influence is actually a more powerful (and potentially profitable) thing. Let me explain more in my next point.

5. Influence can Lead to Profits

More and more bloggers are discovering that while direct income earners like advertising are great – that there’s also incredible potential for bloggers to earn an income through other more indirect income sources. Making money ‘because’ of a blog rather than directly ‘from’ a blog is possible in may ways including consulting, writing books, running training and workshops, selling products, landing other paid writing gigs, speaking at conferences etc.

The more people that you have some kind of influence with the increased chances of being able to monetize that influence in one of these indirect methods.

A subscriber might not be visiting your blog each day but if you provide great content on a daily basis to them you can bet that the day they decide that they need to hire a consultant on your topic that they’ll come knocking on your door.

6. Other Monetization Models for RSS

Indirect income is not the only possibility for RSS. There is also RSS advertising – this industry is still in its infancy and while isn’t hugely profitable using tools like AdSense I’m hearing bloggers reporting that it’s a growing income source for them.

The other great opportunity for income from RSS subscribers is affiliate programs. This taps into point #5 above – when you have ‘influence’ or trust established with readers an affiliate program can be very profitable.

7. The challenge of drawing subscribers into your blog

Just because someone subscribes to your blog does not mean that they’ll never visit it. In fact RSS subscribers can be among your most regular visitors to your blog if you draw them into actually visiting it.

I won’t go into a lot of techniques for this in this post but using techniques like asking questions, running polls, interlinking posts, writing ‘best of’ lists and more techniques can draw subscribers into visiting your blog on a daily basis.

Read more detailed tips on getting RSS readers visiting your blog.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Are RSS Subscribers Worthwhile if they Don’t Visit Your Blog?

I’ve had a lot of people email me to ask what I think about the technique. My response:

1. It’s not surprising to see that it’s Possible - I’ve seen a few bloggers play with this type of technique over the years.

2. It’s an empty Achievement - so your feedburner button is a few thousand more tomorrow than it is today – but ultimately all it means is that you hacked it – no one new is reading your blog.

3. Do something that Matters – Expend the energy doing something that draws in real new readers. Network with other bloggers, write some quality content, write a guest post for another blog, make your blog stickier…. do something that matters

4. Social Proof? – Yes, having more numbers in your feedburner counter might convince a few extra people to subscribe (social proof) but what happens next week when feedburner closes the loophole and suddenly your regular readers see that you’ve just lost a couple of thousand readers? Is there such a thing as reverse social proof?

5. Risk? – I’ve never really been into ‘evil’ tactics – partly because I just don’t get into them but partly because when you deliberately do something to abuse a service that is provided to you by a company – sometimes things come back to bite you. I’m not sure if Feedburner (owned by Google) would take action against people trying to inflate their numbers – but do you really want to find out?

Want to know how to really build the number of subscribers to your blog?

• 11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for your Blog
• A Secret to Finding New Subscribers for Your Blog (the start of a 3 part series)

OK – lets get back to blogging shall we?

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Get 2500 New ‘Subscribers’ to Your Blog Overnight (and Why I Don’t Really Care)