Since most of you guys won’t be reading until the end of this post, I’m finishing up the entry counts for DatMoney’s "Get Traffic" contest and I will be announcing winners via my Feed footer so make sure you check your RSS Feeds to see if you won!  Update: Feedburner is currently not displaying my e-mail subscribers so I will have to postpone the drawing until Feedburner gets their act together!

I’m sure many of us use Feedburner as a way of keeping track of our RSS Feeds but lately, it hasn’t been that reliable. Should we all consider switching to a new RSS Feed service?

So, I’ve noticed that Feedburner tends to not include some of our subscribers, on more than one occasion. The very first time I noticed this was a few months ago when I dropped like 75 subscribers within one day. I panicked a little bit and hit up a couple of forums to see if I was the only one. I wasn’t. Luckily, it was just Feedburner not including Google Reader subscribers or e-mail subscribers.

But aren’t we all relying on that number, a little bit? I mean, especially for those of who work hard to get that number up and display it for our visitors to see.

This past week it happened twice. And honestly, that’s twice too many times.

The first time, they didn’t include my Google subscribers and my RSS Feeds went from 311 and dropped to 226, and this time (today) they didn’t include any of my e-mail subscribers so it dropped from 309 to 193.

I know that isn’t as bad as most but I do value my subscribers. And the more Feedburner miscounts my stats, the more I could possibly be losing more subscribers, or even advertisers and sponsors.

How?

Well, besides the content, a lot of people tend to view the daily subscribers as a blog’s loyal readership. And when new visitors come to my site, they would see my subscribers and probably think "wow, that many people are subscribed? I come here pretty often, maybe I should subscribe as well!"
I mean, there is a reason why we all flaunt our reader counts, right?

Also, a lot of advertisers will stop by your blog to see that number and determine if they want to advertise with you or not. Because that feed count is determined on the minimum amount of people who would view your content every single day .

So, I said it once and I’ll say it again "what in the hell is up with Feedburner?" and "Should we all consider switching to a new RSS Feed service?"

So, for those of you guys that have multiple blogs and you’re sick of looking for the same blog directories to submit to, I decided to compile a long list. Similar to my “13 blogging forums you should join list” but this one will constantly be updated. And if you didn’t already know, submitting to directories will help with backlinks, Google pagerank, sometimes traffic and RSS Feed subscribers, etc.

If you haven’t submitted your blog into any directories, I would suggest doing so. Most of these RSS and blog directories are absolutely free , though, some of them require a small fee. But like I said, most are free, though, some require reciprocal backlinks, sign-ups or some require nothing at all in exchange. And it only takes like a minute or two to submit.

Again, this will help your blog in the long run with backlinks from sites with high pageranks which leads to you getting a better pagerank which leads to getting traffic from search engines!

Helpful hint: Write down on a Word document or notepad the following information so you can cut and paste. (Some simply require your blog URL and/or RSS Feeds.)

- Blog URL and title
- Short and long Blog description
- Blog RSS Feeds URL

Below is the list (in no particular order):

Blogtoplist.com
Blogflux
Blogdigger.com
Bloggernity.com
Topblogarea.com
Blogsrater.com
Bloggeries.com
Blogrankings.com
Feeds4all.com
Feedboy.com
Blogoriffic.com
All-Blogs.net
Romow.com
Blogintro.com
Blogskinny.com
Easy-seek.com
2RSS.com
Answers.com
Avivadirectory.com
Blawg.com
Blogbib.com
Blogexplosion.com
Bulletize.com
Blogbunch.com
Blogcatalog.com
Blogcode.com
Bloghop.com
Blogpulse.com
Blog-search.com
BlogZ
Boingboing.net
BOTW Blog Directory
Chordata.info
Contentsmatter.com
Crayon.net
Feedage.com
Feedsfarm.com
Findingblog.com
Fybersearch.com
Globeofblogs.com
Blogbusiness.com
Icerocket.com
Plazoo.com
Postami.com
Pressradar.com
Readablog.com
Blogsforsmallbusiness.com

If you guys have any I should add to this list, feel free to let me know by commenting! Thanks! Hopefully this list will help you guys…

This is a given - you will lose readers and you will lose RSS Feed subscribers, but how soon will that happen? When my current contest is over, will you unsubscribe the next day?

It’s a given that there will be people who will immediately unsubscribe, and I definitely understand if someone does not like my content, but would you go through the entire hassle simply to enter a contest?

I was talking with Maki of Doshdosh (on Twitter) briefly about contests and he mentions “Contests are useful once in a while but my experience is that putting effort to teach/help others matters a lot more for readership.” In addition, he adds “If you don’t put effort to write excellent content, gigantic contests or hours spent doing social media ain’t gonna help. Remember that!”

Yes, I will remember that. And I’m sure a lot of you guys reading this should to. You can promote and market your blog/content all you want and get tons of readers and visitors, but it’s your content that keeps them coming back.

Of course, Maki has never held a single contest on Doshdosh.com and look at how well he’s done. He is an A-lister, he writes great articles, he’s well-known and I’m sure he makes a pretty penny on top of that. And to add to my ass-kissing, I am one of his 14,821 subscribers!

I’m not going to compare my posts but I do feel as though my content is good enough and I hope its good enough for people entering my contest to stay subscribed. I use contests as a way of pushing that daily reader to actually come back once a day rather than once a week. I feel it’s more of an incentive to get them participating but I don’t want to force anything on people.

I know a lot of people who sign up to peoples RSS Feeds simply for contests, and not less than a day after the winners are announced, they unsubscribe - even if they are one of the winners! So, are you one of those types of people?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have unsubscribed to RSS feeds before, but then again, I don’t normally subscribe simply because of a contest. I subscribe because of the content.

So, if you subscribed strictly for the contest, I’ll know exactly who you are within a week after the contest is over. And I will have future contests so I’ll see if you re-subscribe or not.

And for those people who subscribed to my RSS Feeds for the contest but actually like my content, I appreciate it. And if you subscribed to my RSS Feeds just because you like my content before any contests I have ever held, you are one of a kind and I’ll find some way to thank you!

Yes Ladies and Gentle-Fellas, DatMoney.com will be starting a NEW Weekly Giveaway – not a contest – but simply a “Giveaway!”

I will be giving away $10.00 USD and 150 Entrecard credits each week for simply commenting.
Wait, that’s it? Just commenting?! I can’t even make that much with Google Adsense in a WHOLE month!

Yes, just by commenting. And if you make less than this from your site with Google Adsense, this is more of an incentive to comment.

For each comment made (within that particular week) you will receive one entry. In addition, I will have one article per week if you comment on it, you will receive two entries.

And don’t worry, I will make it very obvious on which post that will be each week. You guys may want to subscribe to my RSS Feed so you don’t miss out on which post will give you that extra entry.

Please note: Only one comment per post is counted as an entry. If you post multiple times on one post, it only counts as one. Also, the comment does have to be somewhat relevant to the article.

I decided to start this giveaway in an attempt to encourage more people to not only read my articles but comment as well. If this is giveaway is successful, I will continue to add more prizes and/or raise the cash and Entrecard credit amounts.

Also, don’t forget my current contest to win up to $300, 12,000 Entrecard credits and custom banner designs simply by subscribing to my RSS Feeds. That contest ends Feb. 29^th – read the details here.

So, what are you waiting for already? Start commenting and subscribe to my RSS Feeds!

Update: I forgot to mention that you need a Paypal and Entrecard account to accept these rewards. Also, instead of dedicating individual posts on each winner every week, I’ll just post each winner on this particular post! And if you do NOT leave your website or any contact, then you’re going to miss out. If you hear from me, that’s a good thing!

Winners:
Week Ending Feb. 23 - Rome of Incomeforeveryone

GiveawayContestMoneyEntrecardCommentRSS Feeds

How many leaders are there in the blogging world? Do you think you’re one of them? Well, no matter what you think, if there were no leaders then there would be no followers. But without followers, there would be no leader, am I right?

So we have all heard of the big name bloggers before, who hasn’t? I mean, their names are only mentioned about 2,365,029 times a day. Well, maybe not that much but that’s how it feels sometimes, huh? But just like leaders, they were also once followers.

It doesn’t mean they’re not innovators in their own way, but at some point in time, they were once a follower. Then they learned and they conquered… the blogging world.

So, what does that tell you? You, me, us, we’re all followers at some point in time. That has to be true. It could be looking up to one of your parents and wanting to follow in their footsteps or reading Problogger.net and wanting to make money online. I mean, seriously, how many people have money-making blogs now because they saw someone else do it? It’s not easy, I can tell you that!

But with the leaders and followers, the same thing can be applied to the numbers on people’s blogs. If you see 15,000 RSS feed subscribers of a particular blog, do you know how many people would just follow the crowd and subscribe because the blog HAS to be just that damn good.

Just like week, quiet a few people had RSS feed spikes in their numbers which probably shot up more than ten times as many as they had the previous day. Now the numbers are back to normal, but the numbers still went up in general, right? Yes, because there were those handful of people that saw how popular your site was, based on your RSS feed subscribers, and they decided to do the same – subscribe. (This is not a subliminal message but, um, please subscribe to my RSS Feeds, thanks!)

In addition, great stats with blogs are more motivation for people to try to overtake those numbers. It’s just like any record-holder - whether it’s surpassing the single-season touchdown record or becoming the fastest man on earth - those records are made to be broken.

Just the thought of a friendly competition like “hey, I can get more RSS feed subscribers than him/her” or “he/she’s number one in Technorati?! Well, not for long!”

So when it comes down to it, if your stats are great, you will have followers. Whether it’s followers as competition or followers to slip into your footsteps, you’re a leader.

But keep in mind; leaders are just as important as the followers and vice versa. So, feel free to follow because you’ll end up leading sooner than later.

RSS FeedsNumbersLeadersFollowersProblogger