subject: How To Eliminate Leaks And Add An Opt In Form To Your WordPress RSS Feed [print this page] How To Eliminate Leaks And Add An Opt In Form To Your WordPress RSS Feed
I was browsing my blog today because I like to emulate my visitors experience occasionally so as to verify functionality and usability. For some reason, I decided to click on my RSS feed just to see how it looked and to make sure that it was indeed valuable to the site. As it turns out, an RSS feed is indeed valuable because of the fact that it allows me to syndicate my blog posts to the world. Syndication, of course, is a great thing because it allows you to reach your readers at their convenience regardless of where they are in the world.
But an important question must be asked. Is my RSS feed providing as much value to my business as it could be? To my surprise, when I looked at my RSS feed in detail, the answer to that question was an astounding NO. There were several places that improvements could be made and the following is a step by step process of how I added value to my business through my RSS feed.
Most RSS feeds are simply a list of links and excerpts. That type of feed in itself is not very interesting. Can it be made better? Sure. Here is how.
To begin, re-route your feed through FeedBurner. FeedBurner is a great feed management tool that gives you wide-spread and highly convenient deliverability of your content. If you are running a standard static site with an RSS feed, simply create an account with FeedBurner and enter your details. FeedBurner will have you up and running in no time. Another nice thing about FeedBurner is the fact that it gives potential subscribers the option to grab your feed using all of the most popular web-based news readers. This way, they can read your updated information using any format they choose.
If you are using Wordpress as your Content Management System (CMS), then you can easily set up a FeedBurner feed using the FeedBurner FeedSmith Wordpress Plugin. Once it is installed, use the setup page to set up an account and redirect your feed to the FeedBurner feed.
Next, make sure that you do not fall into the temptation of monetizing your feed using ultra-cheap Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. In the Internet Marketing (IM) world, advertising of this nature is known as a leak due to the fact that it takes visitors away from your site and, in the case of PPC ads, for ridiculously low Return On Investment (ROI). PPC ads take traffic that you worked extremely hard to drive to your site away in a flash for as little as a nickel. You time is worth more than that and so are your efforts. Essentially any other monetization model would be better.
Finally, without leaks on your FeedBurner feed, you can customize it and make it work for you and your interests. The best way to do this is to overlay your feed with a squeeze page. If you are unfamiliar with squeeze pages, they are essentially short landing pages that promise free information in exchange for a visitors email address. Squeeze pages are designed specifically to be leak-free. This gives the visitor only two options after landing on the squeeze page. They can either opt in or click the back button. A tempting offer will encourage them to opt in.
So, how is a squeeze page overlaid with the FeedBurner feed? Simple, using the Ozh' Better Feed Wordpress Plugin. Once it is installed, your can easily customize your feed, adding and arranging the footer beneath each item in the feed. It is as simple as that!
Personally, I add a link to my blog index page on the first footer line, a link to the original article on the second line, a link to the related tags on the third line and starting on the fourth line my squeeze content which includes a sales letter and an opt in form. This extensive sales letter and opt in form is essentially an advertisement that is placed in the footer of each and every post in the feed giving your readers ample exposure and opportunity to take you up on your offer.
