Written on July 4th, 2007 at 10:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Seasonal Traffic and How to Capture It for Your Blog

Writing Content 36 comments

Don’t Miss Seasonal Opportunities on Your Blog for Spectacular Traffic. Read to the bottom of this post for an example of how I’ve used the same content three times in 18 months to generate 50,000 page views on one post.

One of the skills that I encourage bloggers to develop is to think ahead about what events might be coming up that will impact the niche that you’re writing about.

The web is a fairly rhythmic place and every year there are waves of activity across search engines and other websites that are quite predictable.

For example:

• In November and December every year millions of people go online searching for gifts in the lead up to Christmas.
• At Superbowl time people go online looking for the ads that were featured during the game.
• Every Thanksgiving the numbers of searches for Turkey recipes go through the roof
• During the Olympic games (every 2 years for Winter and Summer games) people go online searching for results and medal tallies.
• At the end of American Idol’s season (and other localized versions) people head online searching for results, inside gossip and related information
• Everytime a blockbuster movie is released people hit the seach engines looking for reviews

The list could go on… and on.

One tool for looking at what people are searching for at any given point in time is Google’s Hot Trends page which shows the latest popular searches.

However as bloggers wanting to capitalize on these mini frenzies of online activity around different topics a tool like Google Trends is limited in how useful it is. The problem with it is that it gives information on what people are searching for today and not what they’ll be searching for in a few weeks or months time.

You see, with 4th of July upon us, one of the keywords people are searching for online today is ‘fireworks’. It comes up 17 times in the top 100 list as I’m writing this (update - a few hours later fireworks appear in 38 of the top 100 terms). The term spikes on July 4 and at the end of the year (just before New Years) every year. Here’s Google’s Trends graph on the term ‘fireworks’ (click to enlarge in a new window).

You can see that this year’s spike is about to happen (or has just started).

The problem is - that if you write a post related to fireworks today you’re too late to capitalize on the majority of traffic that is out there for the term. You’ve not allowed long enough for the search engines to find you or for other blogs and sites to link up to you.

At the very least you will have wanted to write your post a couple of weeks (if not months) ago.

This same principle applies not only to fireworks but any seasonal event that happens in your niche. This is why last year I started writing my How to Optimize Your blog for Christmas Series in November. It’s why the best blogs on the iPhone (did I say I wouldn’t mention it?) started way back when it was announced (or even before) and why I know bloggers starting blogs on events that won’t even happen for over 12 months.

Before I give you a couple of tips on how to capture some of this seasonal traffic to your blog lets look at five of the more obvious seasonal trends/holidays/events to illustrate just how rhythmic a lot of it can be. The following is Google’s Trend graphs for Christmas, Easter, Mothers Day, Valentines and 4th July. As you can see, it’s very predictable stuff.

Of course it is never really too late to blog on a topic. With tools like Google’s Blog Search, Digg and Technorati a story can still hit it big very quickly - but to be found particularly by search engines you need to be planning well ahead.

Take Home Tip - Start a Blog Diary

Get a Wall-planner or diary (or use an online calendar) and start brainstorming events that happen in your niche. These might be annual events, one off event or even semi-regular ones. Add these events to your diary but also make a note of them two months and one month before they arrive - telling yourself to start writing on those topics to get ready.

You’ll find that with keeping a record of the events in your niche for a full year that you’ll start to notice annual trends that will help you plan for following years.

One last tip - Reposting Seasonal Content to Build Momentum

Here’s another quick tip if you have seasonal events in your niche - you don’t have to write new content every time the event happens.

I wrote a month ago about giving Underperforming Posts a Second Chance with Updates. The theory was that sometimes putting an old post back in the spotlight with some good updates can give an old unsuccessful post a second wind.

What I’ve found is that this technique is not only good for under performing posts - but also previously successful seasonal ones.

The most topical example that I can give you of me experimenting with this technique is my post How to Photograph Fireworks Displays. This post is 13 months old - yet it has appeared on the front page of my blog 3 times (once when it was written in the lead up to last year’s 4th July, once just before New Years in December surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.and once a week ago).

On each occasion I’ve updated the post with new images and information to freshen it up so that regular readers are not just seeing the same old information.

The reason for updating to post is to give it a second (and now third) chance to be read. The information is relevant and useful and as a result the post continues to grow momentum.

Every time I repost it it gets a small SEO boost having been featured on the front page of the blog, it gets fresh incoming links from other blogs and sites, it gets bookmarked by readers on social bookmarking sites and it enjoys larger and larger traffic. This year it’s even reached the number one position for it’s keywords on Google as a result of the strategy.

Readers seem to love it also. I’ve had so many emails today from readers saying that they’ve read the post previously but appreciate me reposting it because they were going to have to go searching for it from last time. New readers have not seen it before and appreciate finding it for the first time.

In terms of traffic - this post has grown in it’s readership every time I’ve posted it. First time around it generated around 5,000 page views, the second time it was closer to 15,000 and this time it’s upwards of 30,000 - with another 18 hours to go until things will peak.

The alternative to this updating strategy would have been to write multiple posts on essentially the same thing for each time that I republished it (or to link to it from the front page). While this might have driven a few readers back to the post it wouldn’t have had the impact that it’s had this time around.

What type of seasons and rhythms happen in your blog’s niche? Do you plan for them? How do you attempt to capture the waves of traffic as they come rolling in?

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Written on July 4th, 2007 at 07:07 am by Darren Rowse

FeedBurner offer Pro Features to Everyone

RSS 18 comments

Exciting news was announced for any blogger using Feedburner to manage their blog’s feeds today. They’ve made two of their Pro level features (MyBrand and Total Stats) free for everyone.

This is great news - I’m particularly excited about the Total Stats package which I’ve been able to use for a while now and which gives some nice extra metrics on your feed - particularly stats on the number of people clicking on specific items in your feed.

MyBrand allows you to match your feed address to your domain name.

Those previously paying for these services won’t be charged as of June.

Get more details of how to turn these features on at the Feedburner Blog.

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Written on July 4th, 2007 at 05:07 am by Darren Rowse

How to Keep Momentum Going on Your Blog with a ‘Points System’

Writing Content 71 comments

Jason left a comment a couple of weeks ago on my previous post asking how many posts readers have posted on their blogs in a week that caught my attention.

In his comment Jason talks about a ‘points system’ which he’s developed for helping him to keep his blog achieving the momentum that he wants it to.

His daily goal is 50 points and different tasks get him different amounts of posts. I’ll let him explain (note - I’ve slightly reformatted his comments):

“I work full-time on the side as well. The way I get things done is by using a point system.

Some days I don’t feel like writing, some days I don’t feel like commenting, some days I don’t feel like networking, or whatever… I have to reach at least 50 points per day.

• 10 points for a long blog post
• 5 for a short one
• 2 points for a comment on a blog I’ve commented on before
• 5 points for commenting on a site I’ve never commented on before
• 1 point per comment on my own blog
• 10 points for installing a new module/plug-in, etc.

Works well for me. I think I may have created the system, or sub-consciously remember reading about such a thing somewhere.

I just know that the point system keeps production going while I also work a full-time job.”

What a great idea. I’m sure some readers will find it a little too complicated for their free flowing style - but if you’re in a dry patch and need a little self discipline, or like Jason have limited time to throw into your blog I think that this is a great plan.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tasks one could put on such a list. Here’s some off the top of my head (feel free to add more):

• 2 points for emailing another blogger with a link to a relevant post
• 3 points for an IM conversation with a blogger in your niche
• 2 points for answering a reader’s question via email

What would you add?

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Written on July 4th, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

RSS-to-Email Comparison Review - FeedBlitz

RSS 10 comments

This is the second part of a three part series of posts on different RSS to Email Solutions. You can read Part 1 which reviews Feedburner’s system here and a review of Zookoda and Aweber here. This post has been contributed by Brian Armstrong of Breaking Free.

FeedBlitz Review

FeedBlitz is a paid service that you can tie into FeedBurner (although they are entirely separate companies). Your FeedBlitz subscribers will count toward your Feedburner stats.

Unlike FeedBurner, they offer more extensive scheduling and customization of the emails, plus importing an outside list of subscribers is a little easier. But the fun stops there. I’ll explore each feature in a bit more detail.

I was excited to see that FeedBlitz had more scheduling options than FeedBurner, but I was a little disappointed after I actually tried it. It is not true scheduling in the sense that you find in most applications (Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, etc) because it isn’t flexible at all. It basically give you four options: email immediately when posts are made, once per day, once per week, and once per month. As stated above, this is not the type of flexibility I was looking for that would allow me to make a post say every three days, or Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It is nowhere near as good as Zookoda’s scheduling, for example.

Second, I tried FeedBlitz’s email customization. While it is very flexible, it’s not necessarily easy to make something that looks good. After about an hour I managed to get something basic that included my logo and looked ok, but it never looked quite as good as even the basic FeedBurner email that you get by default. It was a little frustrating to say the least, but if you were really a pro (or hired one), you would probably appreciate this level of flexibility.

Importing subscribers was a little bit easier than in FeedBurner. Instead of emailing all users to ask them to opt in again, they email all users asking them to take action only if they DON’T want to continue. The difference is important because if someone ignores the email or deletes it, they will still be on the list. They don’t have to be proActive. You’ll still see a certain percentage of people unsubscribe, but not nearly as many as if you asked them to opt-in again.

One thing I found particularly annoying though was that it wasn’t clear to me that FeedBlitz was going to email my entire list after I imported them. It showed a sample email on the screen, but I thought they were suggesting I send that out, not that they were about the send it for me when I clicked “next”!

This brings me to perhaps my biggest gripe with FeedBlitz: it is quite possibly the worst user interface I have ever seen on a website, ever.

That is a big statement, and I’m being a little bit dramatic, but in all seriousness it is confusing and very difficult to use. I frequently found myself lost, arriving at screens totally unexpectedly from different links, and unable to perform basic tasks. Some functions are buried four levels deep in strange pull down menus, there are a handful of bugs, and a wide variety of UI conventions are mish-mashed together. The FeedBlitz team really needs to read some books by Alan Cooper.

I don’t mind paying for a service if it delivers, but even FeedBlitz’s payment system was flawed. Just the sheer number of options was bothersome: Free, Pro, AdPro, Turbo, and a mysterious Newsletter Edition, each of which had different features. I don’t know if I’m allowed to change my logo in the AdPro or Turbo version, and found myself just wishing they had made it one price for the “paid version” which came with everything. When it came time to cancel my subscription, even that didn’t work when their website form had a bug, and I had to call support again.

Overall I would have expected more from a paid service. There was no option to include additional fields (like the subscriber’s first name) which is free in Zookoda, and while it was possible to get a support rep on the phone by leaving a few messages and waiting, I received no responses to email inquiries.

Pros:

• Offers customization of emails
• Easier to import subscribers but still contacts them
• More scheduling options, but not true scheduling
• Support (sometimes)
• Subscribers count in FeedBurner Stats

Cons:

• Confusing user interface
• Costs anywhere from $5-$20 per month
• Annoying payment options

Bottom line: 2/5 starsWhile FeedBlitz had the right idea offering customization and scheduling, their poor implementation makes it tough to compete with services like Zookoda which offer the same features (and more) for free.

Note:

Part 3 of this review will cover Zookoda, and AWeber.

About the author:

Brian Armh3 is a entrepreneur who achieved financial freedom working for himself at age 23. If you’ve always wanted to start your own business and work for yourself, check out his website on how to start a business. You can read interviews with self made millionaires where they share the secrets to their success, and learn how to start your own business for under $100. Check it out: http://www.startbreakingfree.com/

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Written on July 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

RSS-to-Email Comparison Review - FeedBurner, FeedBlitz, Zookoda, AWeber

RSS 29 comments

This first part of a three part series of posts has been contributed by Brian Armstrong of Breaking Free (read more about him at the end of this post).

Most bloggers have heard that providing an email subscription option is a good idea.

The reasoning goes that most internet users don’t know what RSS is, and don’t care. Just ask your parents! They need another subscription option, and email fills that role beautifully.

By the way, I believe we as bloggers have ourselves to blame for the RSS confusion, but I’ll save that story for another day.

Today I’m going to give you an overview of what RSS-to-Email services are out there, and help you pick the right one for your blog.

As a side note, I have yet to find a perfect RSS-to-Email service that does everything I could possibly want. I believe a real opportunity exists for one of the services below to step up and really meet the needs of this market! If I could find a service that did all of the following I’d be in heaven, as would many bloggers:

• Flexible Scheduling
• Branding/Customization
• Import subscribers without requiring another opt-in
• Free
• Some basic support (by email, or a forum for example)
• Subscribers count in FeedBurner stats

Without further ado…

Feedburner Review

It was only natural that Feedburner, with it’s dominance in the RSS arena, would offer an RSS-to-Email service. It turned out to be a breeze and is a excellent, if rather basic, service.

If you already have a FeedBurner account, just click “publicize”, “email subscriptions”, and then “activate”. You’ll have three options but just stick with the standard FeedBurner for now (FeedBlitz is discussed below, and RMail is so basic that I wouldn’t recommend using it over FeedBlitz).

Their emails actually look quite professional by default, and new subscribers will count toward your Feedburner stats which is great.

Only two things disappointed me about FeedBurner. The first was that the only scheduling option was “once per day”. In my own tests, I’ve seen that emailing users once per day is too much and will leave you with a fairly high unsubscribe rate. People’s inboxes are already packed (which is why they need RSS, but alas…) and you will get a handful of emails from people saying “stop emailing me!” if it’s once per day, even though there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom.

While once per day is too much, once per week is probably not enough. Some top marketers that I’ve seen send out messages once every few days (every three days is probably ideal), which I assume is based on extensive testing. The bottom line is that I’d love to see more scheduling options from FeedBurner.

The second gripe I had with FeedBurner is that I was not allowed to import subscribers. Their official policy is that they review each request on a case-by-case basis. It took about a week to get a response but my request to import a fairly small list of 600 or so was denied, stating that it was too big. Based on this limited information, I have to conclude that importing is essentially not allowed for all but the tiniest of lists (they never asked for proof of double opt-ins or anything of that sort so I don’t think it would have helped)

I understand why they have the policy (to avoid problems with spammers) but at the same time this is a major disadvantage. Your only option is to email everyone on your list asking them to re-subscribe to your new list, which has a very low success rate. Expect to have your list cut in half.

Even people who WANT to receive your content will ignore or delete that type of email. Remember, your readers don’t know or care about double opt-ins, single opt-ins, and the can spam act. Nor should you expect them to. From their point of view you are just bothering them. They found your content emails interesting but they don’t feel like filling out more forms.

Pros:

• Simple to set up
• Allows basic branding by uploading your logo
• Subscribers count toward your Feedburner stats
• Decent support by email (responds within a few days)

Cons:

• No scheduling
• Can’t import subscribers

Bottom Line: 4/5 stars

FeedBurner is a good solution for anyone who doesn’t have a current subscriber list to import and wants to get something setup quickly.

Note: Part 2 and 3 of this review will cover FeedBlitz, Zookoda, and AWeber.

About the author:
Brian Armstrong is a entrepreneur who achieved financial freedom working for himself at age 23. If you’ve always wanted to start your own business and work for yourself, check out his website on how to start a business. You can read interviews with self made millionaires where they share the secrets to their success, and learn how to start your own business for under $100. Check it out: http://www.startbreakingfree.com/

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Written on July 2nd, 2007 at 02:07 am by Darren Rowse

Links that Don’t mention the iPhone - Speedlinking 2 July 2007

Pro Blogging News 29 comments

I’ve come very close to simply marking every unread in my RSS readers as ‘read’ today because something close to 50% of posts that I’m reading are about one thing - the iPhone.

While I’m a big fan of Apple and think this looks like a great product - I’m over it. Maybe it is because we can’t get or use them here in Australia for six months - or maybe because I just think that the blogosphere has become a little obsessed by the whole thing - but declaring this to be an iPhone free zone from here on (well for a while anyway).

I didn’t mark all my RSS feeds as ‘read’ - and while I’ve waded through hundreds of posts about that product which will now remain nameless I did find a few others well worth reading. Here they are:

Des is writing a series on his 5 Favorite News Readers and has written about Newsgator Online, BlogBridge, Bloglines so far.

Blogging Tips shares 10 mistakes that many new bloggers make

David shares a few reflections on How Speedlinking can Help you

Neil gives a few tips on how to use conferences to build your brand both as a speaker and attendee

CommonCraft have produced a good introductory video into Social Networking. Enjoy.

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Written on July 1st, 2007 at 04:07 am by Darren Rowse

My Weekend Blog Strategy

Writing Content 21 comments

In my last post I asked ‘What do you do with your blog on the weekend?‘

Having asked the question I thought I’d give a quick answer myself to shed a little light on one strategy (of many) that I’ve been using.

I ask questions

You’ve probably noticed it if you’re regular reader of any of my blogs - but over the last few months I’ve decided to make the weekends less about me producing content and more about the community discussing an issue.

I don’t do it every weekend - but posing a question for readers to ponder seems to be working for me. There’s a few reasons (7) that I like it:

1. It Lengthens the Window for Conversation - here at enternetusers I’m on a 2-4 posts per day posting schedule. The downside of posting more than once a day is that stories get pushed down the page reasonably quickly. This means that the conversation that is happening on a post has a real window where it happens before quickly dying off. Posting a question on the weekend gives a conversation space to happen and lengthens the window that it can happen in. When I post a reader question like this I try not to post anything else for at least 12-24 hours. The result it lots of participation.

2. Readers are in a Different Mindset on the Weekend - I know for myself that the weekend leaves me in a different frame of mind. I do things slower, I’m more interested in connecting with people, I’m more relaxed and willing to have conversation etc. This means conversational posts have a better chance on the weekend. Instead of just getting quick and blunt comments I notice comments left on the weekend are often longer and more thought through (of course there are always exceptions).

3. Increased Reader Community and Participation - I am becoming more and more convinced that when a reader participates regularly on a blog that they are more likely to feel a sense of ownership and belonging to that blog. This means they’re more likely to comment again and keep on visiting. This is what I’m wanting to put more and more time into on my blogs - building communities around topics rather than just building my own perceived expertise. I want to build a community that is known for it’s expertise. The best way to build a true community is to give people a space to share, connect and learn together. Taking this approach on the weekend allows me to step back a little and the community to step up to the plate and show what it knows.

4. Increased Blog Stickiness - Visitor numbers tend to drop on my blogs (and they do for most websites and blogs that don’t have a specific weekend focus - such as sports blogs) however I’ve noticed that the page views per visitor tend to increase a little on the weekends. This might be partly as a result of readers being a little more willing to surf more pages as they have more time - but I also think it’s because of my reader questions and the way that that means more page views. For starters, just leaving a comment means at least two page views - but secondly, these discussions draw people back later in the weekend to see what others have written.

5. They Don’t take Much Work - another reason that I like these posts on the weekend is that they don’t take a whole lot of work to write up, which leaves me time to do fun, relaxing and non blogging stuff on my days off. I think it’s important to work hard at a blog - but also to work hard and not blogging at times. These posts help a lot with that. However, keep in mind that they can actually cause work in terms of moderation. I may not blog much on the weekends that I ask questions - but I do regularly log in to moderate the threads as comment levels go up.

6. Research - Another reason for asking questions is that they tell you a lot about your readership. Ask good questions and you’ll learn information about what type of posts to write in future, what advertisers they might respond to, what products they earn, what gets them fired up etc. All of this is useful to know as you continue develop your blog and build your community.

7. Followup Posts - Lastly, the great thing about a ‘reader question’ type post is that it opens up all kinds of possibilities for more posts. Here’s a few ways that this is the case:

• Reader Questions - quite often on these posts readers not only answer your question but ask more. These questions are often perfect topics to write upon in the following week.
• Summary Posts - these posts are where you attempt to identify the key threads of the conversation that might have happened over the weekend. You might try to graph the responses or just highlight the key points. Here’s an example of a summary post on the topic of popular post production software (which summarized this previous question post - a post with over 200 responses).
• Answer Your Own Question - this very post is a followup post to my own question posed yesterday. These posts are important as readers do like to know your own opinion and they can bring a little clarity to the conversations that are happening in the previous post.

The other good thing about followup posts is that they often can re-ignite the previous conversation and remind people to go back and read the conversation again. Followup posts can happen as soon as the day after the previous conversation or could happen weeks later.

Is this My Only Weekend Posting Strategy?

The short answer is no. The longer answer is that I use a variety of techniques on the weekend, depending upon how much time I have, what news is breaking and where the blog is at (often dependent upon what’s happened on the blog in the previous week). Sometimes I ask these types of questions during the week, sometimes I don’t ask them for a few weeks (some readers get a little sick of them and want your opinion rather than everyone elses) and sometimes I’ll throw in different types of posts on the weekend.

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Written on June 30th, 2007 at 08:06 am by Darren Rowse

What do you do with your Blog on the Weekend?

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 108 comments

The weekend is here and I’m looking forward to some fun. You see today is my Son’s first birthday party (his actual birthday is next Friday) and we’re getting together with family and friends to celebrate his first year as well as doing a dedication ceremony (sort of like a Christening). It’s going to be a great day.

Weekends present bloggers with an interesting challenge when it comes to thinking about what to do with their blogs.

‘What do I do with my blog on the weekend?’ is a question I’m often asked.

• Do I post less because people are not online as much?
• Should I post more to try to keep traffic levels up?
• Should I just take a couple of days off for my own well-being (ie get a life)?
• Should I write posts in advance and set them to go off automatically?
• Should I use the weekend to write posts for the next week because I’ve got extra time on my hands?

All of the above strategies are ones that I’ve seen different bloggers use (and most of them I’ve tried myself). There’s no real right or wrong answer I guess - but I’d be interested to know what others do with their blogs on the weekend? Is it blogging as usual or do you change your strategy?

What do you do with your blog on the weekend?

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Written on June 30th, 2007 at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse

More Tips on Getting Unverified Email Subscribers to Confirm their Subscription

RSS, Blog Promotion 19 comments

Yesterday I wrote a tip on increasing subscriber numbers to your blog that focussed upon those doing it via Feedburner’s RSS to Email feature emailing unverified subscribers to remind them to confirm their subscription.

The post generated quite a few questions via comments and email - to the point that I thought I’d write the answers as a new post. At the end of this post I’ll include a copy of what I emailed to unverified subscribers.

Does feedburner allow it - doesn’t this break their terms of service?

No - I checked this before doing it with feedburner. Actually, to be more accurate, when I emailed Feedburner’s support team with the problem of over 800 unverified subscribers they actually suggested that one solution would be to email them after exporting the subscriber list. I guess that’s an indication that they don’t mind.

Will Feedburner develop a feature that reminds subscribers instead of having to do it manually?

I’ve asked Feedburner this a couple of times now and on both occasions they said that it’s something they are interested in developing. I’m not sure if this is just a standard reply to keep us users happy, or whether it’s something they’re serious about developing but I do think that it would be something that bloggers would appreciate.

Is there a risk of being labeled a spammer?

Sending out so many emails to subscribers might carry some risks with it. My hope is that I wrote the email in such a way as to be perceived as doing my readers a favor. I won’t be emailing unverified subscribers every week and hope that the occasional reminder won’t be looked upon as an unfavorable practice.

How many reminders would you send?

I’ve not really thought this one through in specifics, however I won’t be doing it too regularly.

Is there a verification URL that one can put in the message?

No, I don’t think Feedburner has the ability to do this yet. What I asked readers to do was either find the old email (and suggested looking in their junk mail as it may have been filtered) or to resubscribe.

Where in the feedburner control panel is a list of all the unverified/verified email addresses?

This was a common question - Feedburner has so many options and pages in their control panel that I’m not surprised that quite a few readers didn’t even know that the list existed. Here’s how to find it.

• Sign in to Feedburner and hit your ‘My Feeds’ tab on the top left hand corner of the screen (if you’re not already there).

• Click the Feed that you want to see the subscriber list for

• Click the ‘Publicize’ Tab at the top of the screen

• Click the ‘Email Subscriptions’ Link halfway down the left hand menu

• Scroll to the bottom of that page and you’ll see a ‘Total Subscribers’ counter which will tell you how many you have using the email subscription service

• Under the counter there is a drop down link titled ‘View Subscriber Details’ - click it

• Your Subscriber list will open up. You’ll see email addresses of every subscriber, the date of their subscription, their ’status’ (which will tell you if they are verified or not) and the ability to delete and deactivate delivery

• Also you should see an ‘export’ option and can export the list as either an Excel or CSV file

What did you write in your email?

Here’s what I sent to unverified subscribers. I attempted to keep it simple, polite, non intrusive and helpful. I had emails back from quite a few recipients of it thanking me for it and saw quite a few people re-subscribe so I suspect it must have worked to some extent. Feel free to use a version of it.

Hi there - At some point in the last few months you (or someone else) signed up to receive daily email updates from the Digital Photography School website - http://www.digital-photography-school.com/blog

We’ve just been checking our subscriber records and notice that you did not complete the subscription process.

Your email address was added to the subscriber list but for some reason you did not confirm your subscription when we sent a follow up email asking you to do so. Unfortunately as our system requires this confirmation we’ve not been able to send updates.

Do you still want to get daily digital photography tips from Digital Photography School?

If not - no problem. We are not into pressuring anyone into joining - but wanted to make sure. Simply ignore this email.

If you do wish to receive the updates we suggest you do one of two things:

1. Find the confirmation email and click the link confirming your subscription

2. If you can’t find it (and we understand how these things get lost) simply resubscribe via our subscription page at:

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/get-daily-updates-from-digital-photography-school/

Once you’ve added your email and then confirmed it with the email that will come minutes afterwards you’ll be set to go. You’re free to unsubscribe at any point.

Thanks for your interest in Digital Photography School.

Darren Rowse

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/blog

I hope that this post helps to clarify how I used this tactic to hook in hundreds of readers who’d had problems connecting into my blog’s community. Let us know how you go with it if you give it a go!

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Written on June 29th, 2007 at 11:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Speedlinking - 29 June 2007

Pro Blogging News 2 comments

After a year of blogging Charlene writes some reflections in a post titled Web Site Monetization - A Reality Check

Webconfs has a useful list of SEO basics - arranged with scores next to them ranging from +3 (strategies worth doing) to -3 (things to avoid). Nice list.

DoshDosh shares 15 Feedburner Feedflares for Promoting a Blog

This week’s SEOMoz Whiteboard video has some great stuff to say about branding yourself outside of the search context. I’ve actually been working up a series of posts that I hope will complement this nicely in the coming week or two.

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