Beef up your Feed with the Feed Footer Plugin
One of my favorite Wordpress plugins lately has been the Feed Footer plugin, from Blog Clout. I subscribe to about a zillion feeds, and I’m surprised that I don’t see it used on other blogs more often. Feed Footer allows Wordpress bloggers to add special notices and other items to the tail end of their posts that are only viewable by RSS subscribers. Here are a couple of ideas on how you can make your feed pop using Feed Footer.
Thank your subscribers
This might sound like a no-brainer, but for some reason I rarely see bloggers tip a hat to their RSS subscribers. After you’ve convinced someone to subscribe to your feed, thanking them for subscribing is a great way to complete the connection you’ve just made… after all, if you had the opportunity to meet your readers face to face, you’d want to thank them personally for reading, wouldn’t you? The fact that feed subscribers can be anonymous online doesn’t have to deprive you of the opportunity to be courteous.
Here’s a graphic image that I use in my feed footer… it’s actually the same image that I applied to Trevor Fitzgerald’s “Subscribe Remind” plugin back in January. I felt that using a graphic would create a stronger impact than simply using text, and I also like the continuity of using the same image both on my blog (to encourage subscriptions) and in the feed (to show appreciation to my RSS readers). If you’d like to see this graphic in action, go ahead and subscribe to my feed and check it out.
Present advertising
There are different schools of thought on monetizing your RSS feed, but if you choose to go that route, Feed Footer allows you to present ads at the bottom of your feed. If your subscriber count is high, you could consider selling ad space in your feed footer… John Chow sells text ads in his feed footer for $200 a month! Of course, you may not have 20,000 RSS readers like John does… if your subscriber count is low, you might have a hard time attracting paying sponsors. In this case, you could still monetize your feed by presenting targeted affiliate offers in your feed footer.
Offer bonus content
Special content that isn’t available to regular readers of your site might be a good way to encourage new readers to subscribe to your feed. You might think about putting a download link in your feed footer for an ebook (yours, or someone else’s that you have the right to promote). I’ve tossed around the idea of running a blog contest where the contest details are only available in the feed footer… people interested in the prize would have to subscribe to my feed to figure out how to win it!
What can you think of?
These are just three ways that you can use the Feed Footer plugin for Wordpress to juice up your feed. Have you got a neat idea or trick to share? Feel free to leave it in the comments!
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Chris Bloczynski dot Com is a blog about entrepreneurship and internet marketing. It's targeted towards ebusiness owners and bloggers, with an emphasis on principles such as attitude, mentorship, tools to streamline your business, and tactics for marketing and growth.
I like the contest idea. You could also give tips or advice that only subscribers get.
Selling ad space is a nice way to monetize it. I like to put affiliate links to offers related to the blog post on one of my websites that offers an RSS feed. Does pretty well.
Good article. This will help my new blog.
Great info. I always wondered how it was done. I will definitely implement this on my blog.
Its a nice write up i must confess
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
The graphic idea seems much more compelling than a simple reminder plugin. Nice work!
This is great idea. Thanks for the post!
- Dave
Its been a while now and no new update.what’s actually hapening
.Somebody should do something about it.
Thanks so much for this post though i think you have posted this berfore now and you just re posted it again.
Those are great ideas for feed footer elements. I need to add something and I was thinking of adding some copyright material and something like the thank you message you have.
Thats a good idea. One thing I that might help. Your color scheme is orange here. On the feed, they default back to blue. You could change the THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBING image to one that is blue. It can still pop and draw the eye, but it would be a distraction.
Great tips, though.
I just got around to installing the plugin. I really like it.
This is a really cool plugin. Although it’s a very small detail sometimes the small details can make a great impression. I have already installed it on my site.
Thanks, the plugin is great. I’m already installing it =)
I use one i created, but a similar idea!
Getting people to subscribe to your feed is something alot of people don’t focus on enough. It’s a great way to get loyal listeners. Nice plugin!
After having this plugin installed for a while, the analytics program really shows that it makes a difference.
I thnk dis is a dam good idea… thnx 4 the post:)
The best way to use this plugin is to put additional information to feed. Related topics, links, announces etc.
wow! i love that idea man!
always good to reward followers/commenters etc. this tools sounds like just the thing to do it easily.
Great idea! Thanks for it!
Very informative article it will definitely work on my new blog. Thanks for it buddy awaiting for your next article..
Wow great idea buddy! Definitely gonna implement it soon..
This is a really helpful for feeds we are using in our website forums to subscribe more clearer, i have here some feeds might help as well.
http://www.internetbusinesspath.com/tag/search-engine-optimised
Content that only subscribers get is like the ultimate way to get more of them. Because instead of adding the site to favourites people will be subscribing to the feed just so they don’t miss a subscriber-exclusive updates.
Many bloggers don’t take full advantage of their rss feed. They are missing a valuable opportunity to further connect with their readers and keep them more loyal.
Idea that you mentioned about feed footer plugin is really good. I will surely implement it on my new blog..