Sick of RSS Subscription Links
You know what I’m sick of?
It’s those small, but annoying boxes bloggers are putting in their blog content that says something to the effect of:
If I want to subscribe to your feed, I know what to do. I’m kinda smart. If you’re content is so engaging that I can’t NOT subscribe (double-negative I know, but it helps the point), then I will…but its not because you suggested it. Its because you’re site has “RSS Staying Power” (new term I just coined). Its because I can learn something from your site and enjoy the way you communicate ideas and knowledge. Not because you want me to.
But begging me to subscribe or sliding a request box into your content is not the way to win my subscription. It only annoys the crap out of me.
Maybe I’m flying off the handle here, but this sort of thing bugs me. I understand the need for subscribers, especially if you have a semi-prominent blog and count on the readers to fuel your ad revenue. Readership is great, but does it really show you something? Really?
I tend to think that readership is skewed. That the actual number of “real” readers who take the time to read your site, are not represented in the number of RSS subscribers you have. A lot of people who take the time to subscribe simply will not check your site again, or it will fall into their group of “hardly read” articles in their feed reader of choice. I would venture to say, and I could be way off here because I don’t have some “super set” of data to base this off of, but I think you should take your readership numbers and multiply it by 65%. That should land you a more “accurate” number of real readers.
I too am guilty of this. I grab a feed thinking that I will enjoy it later, only to find out that maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe that particular day I was impressed with what I found, but later reads proved to the contrary. It was not a blog that had RSS Staying Power. Thus, when I got tired of seeing it, it got deleted.
So do me a solid, you three people who actually read my site…remove this ridiculous block of html if you’re a blogger and have it. You probably dont want these “every once-in-a-while” readers anyway. If you don’t want to remove it because you think it increases your RSS subscribership numbers, then move it out of the main content section of your articles. How about on the sidebar where it belongs?
Good suggestion! I am definitely removing those things that are screaming “pay me attention” and trying to wow readers with my writing instead!
Hey dude, I partially agree with you and partially do not! I don’t think I have anything like that on my site, so speaking from that perspective.
Sometimes when I am browsing the web I am sort of braindead. And I’ve been trying to add a lot of stuff to my feed reader so I can catch up with content that I like. But a lot of times I forget or miss the other links (In FF’s url bar, or whatnot) so it is nice to have a reminder that a site has an RSS feed.
Also, would you rather have that or a site that permanently has a reminder to ‘add rss feed?’. I think I would rather have one that is there temporarily and then goes away (or maybe it WOULD be better if it wasn’t there first, then if you are a frequent reader, would suggest an RSS feed).
Anyway, a 3rd reason is that people aren’t always as brilliant as the tquizzle, although I think most people who use RSS readers know what they are doing! :)
@Ellie – Great!
@Dave – You’ve got a good point there. I’m brain-dead quite often while surfing. But if its something that’s interesting, my mind will at least remember to mark it, add it to my feed reader, or something.
To your second point, that would be okay I guess. But how would the website know that you’re not already a reader? There’s no “real” check to see if you’ve subscribed to the Feed (to my knowledge) from the website itself…or is there?
Lastly, you’re right. Everyone’s not as brilliant as me. This I cannot refute!
LOL
Re your 65% number. I think you are right on track, depending on the # of subscribers. Lower numbers might be even higher. I know I had a friend who ran a blog for a show/podcast they did, and they were excited that they had like 15 or 20 RSS readers. I hated to burst their bubble but I told them that most likely 10 or more were bots just archiving the feed!
Honestly, if you use Firefox, there’s a subscribe button in the address bar, and many websites already have “Subscribe” buttons or links in their template. So another reminder might be overkill. Just might.
I can’t wait for my new theme to be completed, because I want to really let my writing shine!
Well, I’m also fed up of that statement. Why don’t bloggers just put the RSS icon on their blogs and never put any words there that annoy me. LOL!
But I love RSS, you know. It’s a traffic booster of my blog…
I don’t have those subscribe come-ons on my blog, just unobtrusive links on the top of the sidebar and at the bottom of the page for a single post. Although I expect most people to just use their browser’s subscribe button.
Personally, I never, ever, EVER click a subscribe link I see on a web page. I use a social network called Toluu for sharing your list of feeds and discovering new ones based on your interests.
To keep my actual reading list in sync with my Toluu profile, I always subscribe to a feed using a bookmarklet that adds it to my Toluu profile and then redirects me to Google Reader. With a bookmarklet that takes care of everything for me, it becomes much more of a hassle to use a certain website’s subscription link, so I agree with you, these links really annoy me since I have no use for them and they just make it harder to find the content. Gimme the good stuff!
Of course not everyone is so savvy (some sites even have a page explaining what RSS is; people who have to read that page might appreciate a ‘subscribe’ link) but when there are too many of them and they get in the way of real content, they’re just annoying!