Why ? Because a huge population on the web still don't know what to do with that orange XML icon on your blog and even if they do, they find a traditional email newsletter more convenient than managing a feedreader.
And this is true even for techie blogs where a good percentage of users already have an idea about RSS.
Take for example the Google Adsense blog - they have some 1,500 subscribers on Bloglines but more than 10,000 readers have chosen to receive new content via email newsletters (powered by Google Groups).
Now these numbers from Google just underline the fact that email subscriptions can sometimes be more important than RSS feeds.
And when we look at our feed stats, the email subscribers constitute a healthy 30% of our entire subscriber base who get an email every weekday at 2 PM IST containing a summary of new content posted on Digital Inspiration.
You are probably missing lot of potential subscribers if that email subscription form is missing on your blog site.
Related: Jakob Nielsen - "It's really dangerous to design for a technical elite. We have to design for a broad majority of users."
Reader Comments
Thanks Amit,
It is a very small piece of advice but help people like me a lot.
http://www.aglobalcompanyforyou.blogspot.com/
Written on 3/2/07 9:05 AM
Hi Amit,
How come Feedburner stats display Feedblitz subscribers..?
My Feedblitz subscribers are never counted in Feedburner.
Is there an option in Feedburner to achieve this?
Thanks in advance.
Written on 3/2/07 10:46 AM
so true ! It took me more than 2 years for my bloglines subscription to reach more than 200, but with 3-4 months of putting in R-mail and Feedburner email, my subscriptions have been added by 150 !
For non-techie blogs I think the advice is much more important !
:-)
Written on 3/2/07 12:42 PM
Amit, I think your post is more important than you might even realize. Most of the people using the web don't really understand RSS nor do they know how to use it. Offering feed updates by email opens the blogosphere to people who aren't regularly involved and don't understand all the terms and functions. This can help us all expand the reach of the blogosphere even more. Everyone who cares about their readership should be sending feeds by email.
Written on 3/2/07 8:43 PM
HI Vijeesh:
FeedBlitz reports your subscriber count in the information we send to your feed. If they are not being counted in your FeedBurner metrics, make sure that you have your FeedBlitz syndication reading your FeedBurner feed - it's that simple.
Phil
Written on 4/2/07 2:17 AM