RSS Feeds

20.4 RSS Feeds

One of the challenges of keeping your user base is that readers can be pretty forgetful. Adding an RSS feed to your site is a great way to let people know that a new post has gone up and that they should stop by and take a look

You’ll want to make sure that your headlines are attractive and inviting. Many users don’t look past them, so if they don’t do the job, the post won’t be opened or read, and the user won’t click to your site. Images can also help your feeds to stand out.

It’s rarely a good idea to send more than RSS post to a subscriber each day. The most common reason that users unsubscribe isn’t poor content or too much advertising, but too many posts.

One good strategy then is to divide your RSS feeds by theme and let subscribers only receive posts on the topics that interest them most. If you’re writing about a range of different themes, that should already help to keep the deliveries down to a manageable level.

The only other choice you’ll have to make is whether to include the whole post in your feed or just a teaser to bring people to your site. When the goal of the feed is to get people back to your site to click the ads, you might think that there’s little point in giving them the whole article in their feed reader. But readers will often unsubscribe if they can’t see the whole article. That would reduce your subscriber base. You might be better off giving them the whole article and inviting them back to your site to add and see comments. Test both options and see which works best for you.