How to have 1000+ rss suscribers in less than two month
Posted by Jean-Baptiste Jung on Dec 6, 2008 | 55 commentsOn October 9, I launched a new blog, called WpRecipes. Less than one month later, I already have 500 rss suscribers, and now, I have around 1100. In this article, I’m going to tell you what I’ve done, and how I did it to manage to get such a readership in a short bit of time.
Good idea
When I launched WpRecipes, I thought it was a good idea, but I didn't expected that so much people will think the same. Even on the first days, I received many emails from readers telling me they really enjoyed the idea and the concept of "small, precise and concise recipes".
Visual identity
When I was thinking about WpRecipes design, it was obvious than I had to create a cat mascot, just like on Cats Who Code and Lyxia.org (A blog in French language)
Using a cat as a mascot for almost all my blogs/sites created a visual identity, which I believe is important.
Friends and connections with other bloggers
As most of you may know, I'm an author on the popular WordPress related blog WpHacks. So, I wrote a short post introducing WpRecipes to WpHacks readers. My feedburner counter jumped from 150 to 400 in 3 days, providing a loyal and qualified readership. Having blogging friends is very important, because they can help you as you help them.
Reviews
Following the publishing of my post on WpHacks, some important blogs as such as Weblog Tools Collection, WpCandy, WpZoom and Vandelay Design talked about WpRecipes. Sure, spreading the word around is very good to gain popularity and bring new readers to your blog.
Guest Blogging
Then, I had 800/900 suscribers and around 1000 pageviews per day, but I still wanted to increase WpRecipes readership. I thought that if a super popular blog talk about my site, it will for sure bring a lot of new readers. So, I asked Smashing Magazine if I should write a guest post for them. They accepted, and two weeks later, they published my article entitled "10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress". This post wasn't an announcement about WpRecipes, but I cited my blog as a source for some hacks, and added a small "About me" paragraph at the end of the article.
Here's the story of WpRecipes launching and promotion. And you, what about your blog? How do you promote it?
Click here for demo and more info
Great post, jbj. I will definitely bookmark it for future references.
Well, yet another post full of ideas that I’ll be implementing on my new blog.
well, Jean….you see the demand and you fill the gap - successfully. Of course, being at the right place, at the right time with the right connection make a whole lot of difference. All the best, buddy.
Yan
@Blog Setup: Thanks my friend! Of course, 2 months is really quick but there’s a plenty of very good bloggers (Including you, of course!) that will soon get 1000+ rss readers
Excellent feedback ! The most important thing is to developp social relations between bloggers : is one key of your sucess as I red. And yes, Wprecipes is an excellent idea with an enormous potential !
I know what I’ve to do now for my weblog… but writting in French is a ittle bit harder to get RSS subscribers, I belive…
Thanks Jbj
Great article! I would like to be in the same case of you because after one month and a half, 0 comment and just 15 feedburner subscribers!
This is serious doctor?
Thanks,
Rainbow
@Maigret & @ Rainbow: Thanks for your comments! Anyways, both of you writes in French, which, of course, is less spoken in the world than English is, so it is normal to have less suscribers than in a blog written in English. If you look at my French blog lyxia.org, I have less than 500 suscribers in one year and half, so
Im subscriber
cat content is king 
Some nice ideas here! It definitely is much better when you have a good network of bloggers that can help you launch with articles and links to your new blog.
Also I was wondering, when you send a request for possible inclusion of guest blog post, do you send the article you want them to feature in the request right away or do you do it other ways?
@HowToMakeMyBlog.com: I never attach article when asking for being a guest blogger. I’ll publish an article about guest-blogging in a few day, so stay tuned and grab the rss feed so you’ll not miss it
I’ll explain how to make the perfect guest post.
Hi, Jean:
I love both WPHacks and WPRecipes. You provide lots of value to wp users this is why you’re rockin the blogosphere. Nice to see how well you’re doing. Lokk forward to more of your “recipes”.
Congrats!
Missy
Twilight Wallpapers Blog
http://www.twilightwallpaper.com
@Missy: Thanks for your kind words
nice post! thanks
The items above are good advise for people who want to gain exposure, but doing the items you listed above is not going to guarantee anyone 1000+ visitors. The reason your blog is successful is not because of the items you specified above, it’s because you are writing towards one specific and very popular audience: WordPress Users.
@Renee: Indeed, that article doesn’t garantee that you’ll have 1000+ rss suscribers in less than two months, it explains how it is possible and what can help you to achieve this goal.
Anyways, I don’t think that the simple fact of writing about WP will make you have 1000+ suscribers.
Totally of topic, but I love the concept of rebbons of red. It’s always nice to see generous persons!
Aww.. I needed this man.. Working hard to increase RSS subscription..
Congrats on your success! It really is a good idea, and your archives are already packed with great tutorials!
Building connections with other blogs is definitely a great help, and more than that, it makes blogging so much more fun!
Great success story. Building relationships with other bloggers is often an overlooked tactic.
@Michael Martin: Exactly, blogging is a lot more fun with some friends!
Goes to show that it pays to have friends. Congratulations on the readership; you should have another added to the stats as soon as I click over.
Congratulations with your successful start of WpRecipes.com. There was no doubt in the success as you are proved owner of 2 very very quality WP blogs. People know and follow what is good.
I suppose it does help that you have this successful blog to introduce your new one. And having some High Profile Blogging friends does help..
Nice work though. Thanks for the advice.
Congratulations! that is a fantastic result, and it looks like it was all planned and expected.
if you want to get rich online, dont hesitate to get near
Great tips man. This will be really helpful for me to gather traffic. I am subscribing to your posts right away.
I think the most important is a good content and announcing on other related big blogs. You’ve done that and get a great result. Congratulations!
It seems a fairy tale to me! Spreading the news is a good point, but convice famous blogs is another matter. To convice famous blogs to speak about your blog is quite difficult, if not impossible, if you dont have some kind of background. I mean, if you are already famous, blogs will be more willing to speak about you. For the rest of us, it is just a matter of …luck!
Great post!
I have never had any luck getting rss subscribers, but I am going to give these tips a try and see (Fingers Crossed).
Great post, but I think what helped you the most is having a ready audience, a new blog in that niche, and several avenues of free promotion. Most people are not in that position. Fairy tale is a pretty accurate description.
My newest blog is more unfocused than anything else I’ve done, but I’m learning a lot with it and I hope that if I can figure out what works on this one, it will benefit me more when implemented on the other sites.
This is one of the best and inspiring articles I have read. And really Wprecipes is a very unique idea.
i already bookmark your site because of your amazing post.
It really helps people knowing more about wordpress.
More power
Great tips! I think providing plenty of great content as link bait and holding contests are two of the best ways to up your rss feed count. Of course the more people you get to your blog, the more subscribers you are going to get.
aha, yet another useful post from the cats team!
I’ve been thinking strongly about finding some quality guest writers for my blog. it will definitely take a load off my shoulders and allow me to do some other things. Thanks for the great article.
My sister is starting a blog on her movie reviews, I’ll definetly pass this great info along to her.Thanks
Well, it is nice that somebody is sharing their success. However, my problem is that SPAM keep coming as soon as i submit new post in my blog
Great advice. So many people only use RSS feeds for backlinks, they don’t realize how much traffic it can actually bring
Having a blogging-related blog vs. blog focused on another niche makes a world of difference. An automotive blog, for example, doesn’t seem to get nearly as many comments nor subscribers. I’m not sure how to relate this information to my situation…
I find that a great way to promote a new blog if you don’t already have other blogs or contacts that you can leverage is to use something like http://www.MyBlogLog.com and http://www.BlogCatalog.com and visit other blogs in your niche. Make useful comments on their blogs and make comments on their MBL or BC profiles. If you do that enough you’ll be able to build the first 100 readers fairly quickly and that will get things moving.
Having established WpHacks gave you some real edge to begin with. Many starters don’t have that advantage.
great post.
Interesting strategies, very impressive progress over a short period of time!
Great strategy, this is something anyone with a blog can incorporate!
Great strategy. I wanted to ask you how to deal with promotion without a backup like wphacks but you answered that in next paragraph - just ask for guest posting on popular blogs. Can’t be more simple.
Reading this post makes me want to subscribe to wprecipes. I have to stick to ‘common methods’ promoting my blog because right now there is nothing really like an authority blog or similar communities in germany.
Well… that’s an advantage on the other hand.
Sebastian
PS: the cats-logos definetly are good. I wouldn’t have liked a blog (and logo) called ‘dogs-who-digg’ although this is a good title for a blog about the best diggs or a similar blog where you had to research a lot in order to provide the best content. (this domain is available if anyone is interested ^^)
Well, the story tells it all. It was really an advantage having a high online credibility and branding.
Congratulations on the great results - it seems you need to establish your self as a successful blogger in order for some of these things to work for you. You also need to be connected with in the community of bloggers which is hard to do without a semi successful blog any advise on how to get better involved with other blogger.s
Your blog idea is perfect, all of us WP users are always looking for expert “recipes” and it is great to find these displayed in simple and easy to use posts!
Thanks!
Sweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty intelligent stuff to say.
I’ll be watching you .
Just keep working and have interesting content and you’ll get subscribers. Of course you also need some promotion!