Before, when someone asks what’s your blog readership, you’re most likely answer based on the number of unique visitors you get. Recently however, with the widespread use of Feedburner and it’s Feedcount chicklet, we’re seeing a slow shift of identifying readership with the total count of RSS subscribers.
Over at Self Made Minds, a running list of Top 100 Blogs based on RSS subscribers is currently being compiled with Engadget again leading the pack at 601,000+ subscribers followed by Boing-boing at 416,000. The list seemed to be dominated by tech blogs (~75%) too.
The Online Marketing Blog narrowed the list down to search marketing blogs and Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land adds that feed counts has now become the preferred currency for blogs seeking respect.
Of course, that feedcount chicklet serves as badge that confirms people are actually reading your blog and not just glancing at it once in a while. It’s not a definite count since some regular readers might not be familiar with RSS readers yet I feel that sometimes those numbers are a good way to attract more readers/subscribers.
So, when was the time when you stopped worrying about pageviews and started focusing on your feed readership?
I can say, late last year when I moved that feedburner chicklet as more important than page views and unique visitors.
Coz I noticed, at least on our blog, that people visit and read the site but do not subscribe, so I’m looking into different ways of getting them subscribed (and get fresh subscribers). Ranging from changing our format(s) to writing tutorials.
I did a random sampling and an FGD just for this, and locally at least, the readers of gameshogun.ws Blognet do not know what Feeds are, they said it’s just their habit to read the blog, no ‘techy’ stuff like syndication. (to start, blame the iCafes who doesn’t want to upgrade to IE7 :p )
when i joined the TextLinkAds, i started to realize that feed subs is the important one for blog pricing. However, page impression and unique visitors remains important for adsense and other affiliates.