Are the RSS feeds really beneficial?

Jun 16, 2007

Yesterday I was writing a small page on RSS feeds to tell my non-technical readers what RSS feeds are, how they can subscribe to them, and what are the benefits of subscribing to RSS feeds. It’s been just recently that I’ve started getting some decent traffic (more than a thousand visitors per day) at Writing Cave and it’s exciting/disturbing to see the RSS feed subscribers counter going up, all of a sudden, and plunging down, the very next day. So I was just wondering, is all this getting worked up about my RSS feed subscribers worth it? It seems completely a different world when I see the counts on other websites, take for instance, Problogger.net, that boast of more than 25,000 RSS feed subscribers. But what’s the use of stopping these 25,000, highly interested readers from coming to your blog because they can read your complete posts through their RSS feed readers? We try to write engaging posts regularly so that people come to our blogs to read them. From the readers’ point of view the RSS feeds make perfect sense, but of what benefit are they to the publishers, the bloggers? I did some research and found the following benefits of encouraging your visitors to subscribe to your RSS feeds:

Your RSS feed subscriber count is an indicator of your popularity, or your blog’s popularity

Well, this cannot be disputed. The more subscribers you have, the more popular your content is. Your higher RSS feed subscriber count is a validation of your content. If you prominently display your RSS feed subscriber count on your blog or website it tells your visitors that there are many people who like to read you regularly. It demolishes the barriers of doubt and unfamiliarity and your visitors read your posts with greater interest and a sense of seriousness. Your heavy feed counter lays down a field of credibility and trust immediately. If you want to increase your RSS feed subscribers then some say, although some dispute it too, that a higher subscriber count encourages more people to subscribe to your RSS feed. Anyway, your RSS feed subscriber count, if it increases at regular intervals, encourages you to generate better content with greater regularity.

Your RSS feed subscribers respond to you with greater speed than your regular visitors

Since your RSS feed subscribers are already enthusiastic about whatever you have to say, whenever you ask for a feedback, most of them readily give it. When you ask for their comments, they readily give them. When you recommend something, they believe you. This is why websites like PayPerPost and Text Link Ads pay more attention to your RSS feed subscriber count while deciding on how much you should be paid for writing review posts and placing link advertisements.

Your RSS feeds can be accessed using many devices

This is really a genuine benefit: your readers don’t have to rely on their laptops and PCs (oh, or Macs) to read your posts. They can use all those devices that can process the RSS/XML data.

Your RSS feeds eventually get you more traffic

In the top paragraph I mentioned that if you have 25,000 RSS feeds subscribers then it probably means those 25,000 highly interested readers are not coming to your blog to read your posts. Well, since they are more interested in reading your posts than your visitors, and probably more comfortable with the associated technology, they are more likely to link to your blog, or forward your links to other similarly interested readers. And I think this is the greatest benefit in terms of generating more traffic to your blog.

You can sell advertising space through your RSS feeds

Google recently bought feedburner and this is an indication that advertising in RSS feeds is a great income potential. Apart from Adsense, there are companies like Pheedo and Kanoodle (I know, funny names, but the Internet is full of them) that let you publish ads in your feeds. You can even manually insert ads but this can become tiresome after a while. The best way to do it choose some program that automatically inserts contextual ads into your feeds. You never know how people react, but I think advertisements in the RSS feeds should generate more response compared to their web page counterparts because the subscribers have subscribed to your RSS feed because they already belong to your niche.

Your RSS feeds are good for SEO

I left this point in the initial post — not intentionally, I wasn’t aware of it — but maintaining and promoting your RSS feeds are good for search engine optimization purposes too. This is what Bill Flitter from Pheedo left in the comment section of this blog:

Another advantage to building feeds is organic search results. Google, Yahoo! and Ask are all looking at feed subscriptions to determine ?good content.? Their theory is if content is worth subscribing to, it is worth indexing.

I think this makes perfect sense, as I mentioned in the first point that your RSS feeds subscriber count validates your popularity and the relevance of your content. It significantly reduces the search engines’ job.

Other, shorter benefits of your RSS feeds

Disseminate information faster
Create topic-related buzz more quickly
Promote affiliate programs

4 Responses to “Are the RSS feeds really beneficial?”

Monetizing Your Blog » Are the RSS feeds really beneficial?
June 16th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
[...] Originally posted here: Amrit [...]
Media One Studios » Text publishers June 17, 2007 12:22 am
June 17th, 2007 at 8:42 am
[...] Are the RSS feeds really beneficial? From the readers? point of view the RSS feeds make perfect sense, but what of what benefit are they to the publishers, the bloggers? I did some research and found the following benefits of encouraging your visitors to subscribe to your … [...]
Bill Flitter
June 17th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Thanks for the mention! Much appreciated. Another advantage to building feeds is organic search results. Google, Yahoo! and Ask are all looking at feed subscriptions to determine “good content.” Their theory is if content is worth subscribing to, it is worth indexing.

Best regards,
Bill Flitter
Founder, Pheedo
Amrit
June 18th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Hi Bill.

Thanks for the pointer — I’ll be adding it to the post :-).