How To Get 1,000 RSS Subscribers in Less Than a Year
I woke up this morning with a pleasant surprise: I saw that I had finally crossed the 1,000 RSS Subscribers mark, according to Feedburner.
In fact, it’s been exactly 225 days, or 7 months and 13 days… or 19,440,000 seconds. Wow. What a run.
Here are a few thoughts about how this all came to pass:
I Wasn’t ‘Famous’
One of the things that can really drive a lot of traffic (obviously) is if you’re famous. In fact, if you’re celebrity, getting 1,000 RSS Readers is as easy as starting a blog and posting a few times.
The problem (or the good thing) is that I wasn’t famous, I had no jump-start out the gate with fame and celebrity because of my name or past achievements, especially in the evangelical sector and industry.
In fact, 7 months ago you had no idea that I existed. Although my “name” was known in other industries and circles, the Christian segment couldn’t care less.
Sweat Equity
Time and effort is everything when it comes to building from scratch.
I knew that I would essentially have to work my butt off, providing consistent and valuable content day in and day out. I knew that I’d have to spend hours tweaking my servers, my design, my blogging strategy, and make constant adjustments as the build grew.
I’d have to work hard.
Leveraging The 5 E’s
Since I knew that I had neither the “street cred” in the Christian blogosphere nor an existing “celebrity” platform to stand on, I’d have to leverage what I did have and what I knew would work:
Experience
I knew that I had a wealth of experience to leverage, from technology, business, web marketing, strategy, social computing, and startups. I also knew that I had nearly 9 years of blogging experience that I could now strategically employ into this space. I was going to use it all.
Expertise
Gaining ground can be difficult, especially if you’re an unknown player in a very large field of “competitors.”
To stand out, I needed to make sure that it was as obvious as possible that I knew what I was doing and that I was an expert that could not only be trusted but that could ultimately provide value to individuals and organizations.
Essentially, I did everything I could to blog about things that I knew I would have deep expertise in, and left the other “shallow” content areas alone.
Endurance
Blogging is more of a marathon race than a sprint. Making it “big” in the blogosphere means that you can’t quit when everyone else is quitting and you can’t do what everyone else is doing.
I mapped out a long term strategy (and an exit strategy) for my blog and knew that long-term success was only as good as my long-term commitment to the blog.
Evolution
Jumping in the water in a new niche and environment guarantees that you are a n00b.
It means that you don’t have real tangible experience until you’re in it. It means that you’re going to get things “wrong” and that you’re going to have to evolve in real time to match the readership and the content needed to keep people’s attentions.
You’re going to make mistakes.
It also means that you’re going to have to evolve your strategy at a microscopic level, which can mean changing your theme (I did it three times within the last 7 months), changing up your platform technology, your 3rd party services, plugins, coding base, etc.
I knew that I would need to be in a constant state of evolution to stay at the bleeding edge.
Evaluation
If I wanted to be the “best” I would have to constantly as myself the hard questions. Not only ask but also follow through.
I’m super critical about myself, my blog, and my strategy. Constant evaluation ties well with evolution and the changes I’ve made have been a direct result of my critical eye and care of my platform.
Just like driving, you make constant evaluations and changes to make sure you stay on the road. If you’re driving 20 miles an hour then you don’t have to do it so often, but if you’re driving 200 mph, then you need to be more aware, more critical, more precise, because the results are more “dramatic.”
Content Conversion
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Generally speaking, the more content you can provide that is consistently high-grade the more readers you will attract and the more subscribers will subscribe.
You want to convert readers into subscribers and the key is good content; clean, concise, consistent, controlled, and clear.
Design Matters
I’ve also said this a number of times, but it amazes me how many subscribers a blogger misses out on simply because they can’t find the subscribe button or that it’s not obvious.
Put that button somewhere strategic, somewhere obvious, and make it big. Use the Feedburner Chicklet for goodness sake.
Goal Setting
When I first started ChurchCrunch I made it one of my metrics for success that in 365 days I’d have more than 1,000 RSS Readers.
I’ve obviously done it.
But the thing with goal setting is that it keeps you razor focused and keeps you sharp. I helps me know if I’m doing a good job and that I’m being effective. It also keeps me on task, and if I fall behind I know I need to make changes, sometimes drastic.
So now, I’m going to push myself again and see if I can get 2,000 by the end of the 365 day trial. It’s a stretch, but all that means is that I’m going to have to continue to innovate.
Luck
Finally, with all the strategy in the world and all that experience and expertise I may have, ultimately it requires a little bit of luck to do all of this as well.
To say that I did it all by myself and that it was all me is completely bogus.
I had no idea if I was going to be able to do it nor was I guaranteed success.
But I did it anyway.
Your Turn
Ok, so now that you know all my secrets, you go do it… and tell me when you’ve done it.
Buzz it!
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32 Responses to “How To Get 1,000 RSS Subscribers in Less Than a Year”
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ROCK AND ROLL DUDE!!!! WHOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lunch. Soon. Taco Bell. On you.
peace|dewde
today? tomorrow? wed?
In your opinion, how much of a roll did your church connection play? Being connected to a few other pretty influential bloggers (at least in the church world)?
I think it helped establish credibility. that's a good point.
but, what i've attempted to do is advertise that as little as possible. there's a number of reasons for that, and perhaps that's a good blog post idea…
thanks for that chris.
I've appreciated your unwillingness to throw those skins on the wall. I'm just going to comment on this blog everyday and hope it throws more traffic my way. When I hit 1,000 I'll list churchcrunch.com as one of the reasons I have so many subscribers.
seriously. just like i believe in harvey dent.
My subscriber count right now is at 8. Looks like I have some goal setting to do. Let's go for 500 subscribers by the end of the year. (And now it's public, so I can't back down!) Wow, that sounds like a long way! But what's a goal without struggle?
love it!
ChurchCrunch has been a big inspiration for me, that blogging was indeed possible. Striking that fine balance between work, homelife, and my site has been one of my biggest challenges. I feel like I am working three full time jobs. When do I sleep? Or maybe a better question, when do you sleep?
sleep? wazzat?
scheduling is everything. really. and trust with your loved one.
So in regards to scheduling, how much time do you spend on ChurchCrunch and Human3rror vs. your position as a Pastor at North Point vs. your position as father, and husband….? There is only so many hours in the day….
Congrats! I think the most important two components are time and commitment. Once you have enough time to transform it into a blog and you feel the commitment for a hobby or business, you can start blogging.
Time means content. Commitment means quality, value. Great amount of valuable content means a profitable business with people interest in it
Thanks! we'll keep it going…!
Thrilled to see your growth, happy to have your advice. Keep it up.
I've been watching you creep closer to a 1,000. Congrats. By luck you mean you were praying for your blog
secret sauce.
Congrats!! I always look forward to your posts – good stuff!
Thanks!
And if it helps, I had no idea John was connected to North Point. Nor at the time did I realize how influential that church is in this community. John did this with sweat!
You're amazing! God bless you more as you continue to be a model to all of us especially to me.
I'll keep all your tips in mind.
Congrats and thanks for the inspiration…and the great content!
Yeah dude. Congrats!
You post good stuff. Me Like.
I'm trying to remember how I even turned on to this blog. I can't remember. I just saw it one day, thought it looked nice (visually professional), and read a post or two (also well written). From there I knew I needed to subscribe and haven't looked back since. Congrats on the big 1k! I'm still looking for the big 100!
Yah man – that is great. Pomomusings.com has been around since mid-2003, and I've only recently pushed through to over 1000. I can't imagine doubling that in less than a year, like your plan is to. But it sounds like a great goal to push towards!
And…no offense, but Intense Debate needs to allow for longer last names. Mine is "Walker Cleaveland" and it won't accept it. Boo.
Use Facebook Connect…!
Thanks for the tips. I need to increases the subscriber base for my news update website. I hope your tips will help. BTW, how long it usually takes to reach 1k subscriber for a normal average blog?
that really depends on too many factors to count. For example, we launched 3 new blogs this week that are already going to break 1,000 probably by the end of the month! http://churchcreate.com, http://churchit.com, and http://churchdrop.com … but this is because we already had a huge base of readers here.
all depends!
I’ve been blogging for just over a year and have also hit the over 1,000 subscriber mark. This is a great post thank you.
I just went through your post about maximizing the RSS feed. Thank you for such good information. I had a feed and a way for people to subscribe via email, but did not know any of the other info that you shared. Now I have everything set up so that I’ll hopefully see more growth.
sure thing!