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Simple Tips for Improving Your Blog’s RSS Feed

RSS (or “Really Simple Syndication”) is an awesome tool any blogger can use to increase subscribers and improve reader experience. Basically, any new content you put into your blog will automatically be sent to subscribers through an RSS feed reader (there are many to choose from), and any one subscriber may be getting RSS feeds from a number of different blogs through the same feed reader. Therefore, using RSS feed readers allows people to keep up with the latest from all their favorite blogs without having to spend the time checking in on each separate blog site. That’s why RSS is a great advantage for your readers, and ultimately for you and your blog, and it should be the best you can make it if you want to maximize those advantages. Here are some tips for how to improve your blog’s RSS feed:
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Looking for Paid Blogging Jobs

Blogs have gradually developed into one of the popular means of internet communication. Many people treat blogging, as a hobby, but it can be a lucrative profession as well. Many organizations have started blogs for keeping their customers informed about their products, so new well-paid blogging jobs keep coming all the time. You need to find them before they are gone. These blogging jobs are easily available on internet and they can be found on several freelance writing job boards.

The best place to start is the Weblogs section of the website About.com. The reason is that this site provides tips along with the listing of blogging jobs. You can also visit the larger websites like ProBlogger that advertise the blogging jobs. Do not miss the mainstream job sites like Career Builder and Monster. Generally, these sites will post better paying jobs. Another option is the blogging network, which hires paid bloggers. They are acquired to look after existing blogs. Network will typically ask for samples on the specified topic. You can also check out the blogs like Deborah’s where freelance writing jobs are advertised. You can also get jobs that offer you a share in revenues.

Always have a blog of your own while looking for a well-paid blogging job and make sure it is updated every day. This allows you to demonstrate your capabilities as a blogger to the talent hunters. You can share your blog with your relatives, friends and business associates. Having your own blog also allows you to gain experience that will be handy while applying for blogging jobs. You also need to be persistent as there are many people looking for these jobs. After having gained more experience, you can also go for better paying jobs and remember to keep away from frauds as some unscrupulous characters have entered the business and they do not pay for your work. Ensure that you are working for a reputed company.

Blog improvements you can do in a pinch

There are so many things you can do to improve your blog significantly and you don’t even need to spend a lot of time to do it. Optimizing your blog is very important. You wouldn’t want all that hard work to go to waste by not being visited by your target audience. There are things you can do with your blog that will take you just a few minutes, half an hour tops. Here are some of them:

Use your social media to generate traffic

Some blog owners still don’t like using social media sites to promote their blog, which is a shame. Links provided to social media sites can generate quick feedback and visits because it’s easier for your friends and acquaintances to click on the link and then read the article. Don’t be shy, self-promotion is not a bad thing. More →

Using Email Subscriptions to Boost Readership

Among all metrics for measuring the reach and authority of a blog, traffic is often the most sought-after. The higher traffic you have, the more readers. When you’re monetizing your site, this translates to higher impressions, and therefore better income. If you’re not after dollars, but rather eyeballs, traffic is still a good indication of how widely distributed your blog is.

However, traffic is not all that matters when it comes to readership. Truth be told, a handful of blog readers are probably too lazy to keep track of all their favorite blogs all the time. Even those who use RSS readers might have dozens and dozens of feeds to sift through. A good number would probably prefer just to receive their daily dose of your blog right in their email inboxes.

The advantage of adding email subscriptions to your usual RSS feed link mostly involves added ease of access to potential visitors. Rather than fumble with copying and pasting the feed URL to their feed reader, they just key in their email address, hit enter,” and expect to be alerted every day of new items.

Some services even go to the extent of copying the body of each post content into the body of the email. At first, you might feel that readership from emails might be eating into your page views. To the contrary, though, most people who want to check out discussions will click on the item and read the blog post from your site itself.

How to set up email subscriptions

The simplest way to set up email subscriptions on your blog is to run your feeds through Feedburner. Once you’ve set up Feedburner to “burn” your site’s feed, you can activate the Email notification service under the Publicize tab.

Can I monetize email subscriptions?

The main problem with email is that, unlike the web, you’re not always sure how your readers will be reading your content. Will it be in HTML? Will it be plain text? Will it be on the desktop computer, or a mobile device? It’s always best to assume that readers will be reading your post in as minimal a format possible, which means text.

This also means that monetizing content transmitted through email might be more difficult. You can monetize RSS feeds through AdSense or banner ads. With email, monetization will usually includes affiliate links and sponsored reviews. If your blog is popular enough, then you can run a newsletter for paid subscribers only, in conjunction with using email as a notification service. You can use software and services like Feedblitz and AWeber for this purpose.

In conclusion, adding email functionality to your blog would help drive traffic to your site. The main benefit, though, is that it gives users an easy way to access your blog without much effort.

Optimization Tip: Write Relevant Headlines

Most of the time, when you think of optimizing your blog for search engines, you think of inbound links, writing linkbait material, commenting on other blogs, and submitting your blog to directories such as EatonWeb. But oftentimes, we forget the number one way you can get your blog to rank well in search queries. Simply write relevant headlines. Copyblogger has a few great tips here.

Many times, I find myself tempted to write headlines with a twist, or funny ones that are meant to be an insider joke (meaning only a few people would understand it). If you run a blog intended for such a purpose, then by all means, go for it. For instance, you might run a literary blog, and you are fond of writing poetry. In many cases, the titles of your posts can be simply one word. It can be as far out as just a single exclamation point.

However, when you run your blog with the intent of providing useful information, or as a source for news, reviews and editorials, it makes sense to use relevant headlines. In this case, you need to include relevant keywords in the title itself. Including relevant keywords in the title can both help your blog become more visible in search engines, and it will also make your post more attractive to human readers, such as those coming from feed readers. After all, at first glance, it’s the title of their post that they encounter, and so people will often judge the content based on the headline.

Let me ask you this: when you do a Google search for a certain topic, do you necessarily click on the first result in the list? Or do you click the title that seems most appropriate to your query?

I must admit that in doing reviews for submissions here on EatonWeb, I often scan through post titles, both current and archived, before reading through posts. This lets me get a feel of what a blog is all about, even before I read through entries. It helps me gauge the relevance of a blog at first glance.

Write a better blog. Start with great headlines.

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