If you use a service like Tumblr, some other blogging platform, or your website has RSS capabilities already programmed, it is critical that you setup an RSS feed. These days, many people do not return to a blog more than once. Instead, they assess it, determine whether it provides high-quality content, and then add its feed to their feed aggregator.
If you opt not to generate an RSS feed for your blog, then those who exclusively use readers are unlikely to follow your blog closely. This puts you at a significant disadvantage relative to your competition.
It is always a good idea to try to hook readers when possible. Rather than simply allow them to gain all of the information from the reader without re-visiting your site, you should consider truncating your RSS feed.
Truncating your RSS feed at a certain amount of characters will prevent people from reading the entire message through their reader. Instead, they will get hooked by your catchy opening line, but will then have to visit your site if they want to get the entire blog post.
In addition to pulling people from social media sites and directing them to your website, you should also think about doing the reverse; taking people who visit your website and getting them to follow you on social media sites. This might seem counter intuitive at first, after all, don’t you want everyone to eventually end up on sales pages? In fact, it can be a highly profitable approach. The reason for this is that it increases customer/visitor engagement, which ultimately translates into more contact and then more sales.
One way in which you can employ this strategy is by adding a “Follow us” module on your website. This is a small box on your site that contains icons that link to your profile pages on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. By clicking these links, visitors can quickly scan your content and decide whether or not they want to follow you via particular social media platforms.
Overall, this is a simple strategy that can yield very large benefits. One of the best things about it is that it is entirely hands-off. Once you create the “Follow us” box on your website, there’s no need to do anything else. Just wait for the new friends to sign up.
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