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I see lots of blogs that show the number of subscribers they have. How can I do this?

Today’s post is brought to you by the ever-popular and knowledgeable Jordan from Momma Blogga.
She has graciously agreed to guest post for me all week while I bask in
the glory that is a family reunion. Welcome Jordan (as you always do)
and leave her many comments so she’s come back!

The easiest way to find out how many subscribers you have and is to use a service like FeedBurner.  FeedBurner provides some nice bells and whistles for blogs’ RSS feed syndication, including subscriber numbers.  You can show off your subscriber numbers with FeedBurner-made chicklets, which you can customize to match the colors of your blog.

To create your custom chicklet, log in to FeedBurner and go to Publicize>FeedCount.  Here you choose your options:

  • Animated/static: the animated option tends to draw people’s eyes more, but only if it’s visible when the graphic loads.  (If your readers will have to page down to see it, they’ll miss the animation).
  • Color scheme: here you can set the colors of the text and the background of the chicklet to match the colors of your blog.  You can use the rainbow chip or pull the color numbers directly from your blog’s CSS and enter them in the boxes to the right of the rainbow chip.

Click Activate.  The page will change, showing your chicklet and the HTML code you’ll need to insert the chicklet in your blog.  FeedBurner also has options to click through to TypePad or Blogger blogs to directly add your widget.  In WordPress.com, you’ll have to go to Design > Widgets.  Add a new Text widget.  Click Edit by the new Text widget and paste the HTML code for your chicklet into the widget.

If you use FeedBlitz for e-mail subscriptions, FeedBlitz also provides an e-mail subscriber count chicklet.  Again, FeedBlitz provides TypePad and Blogger widgets, but you’ll have to get the HTML code and paste it as above for WordPress.com blogs.

4 thoughts on “I see lots of blogs that show the number of subscribers they have. How can I do this?”

  1. hello

    does feed counter also show the number of e-mail subscribers?

    cuz, i’ve secretly subscribed to my own blog

    and it’s still zero readers

    i was just expecting 2 cuz i have two e-mails

    thanks!

  2. That’s exactly what I was going to say in the post on increasing your number of subscribers today.

    But believe me, there are lots of people who want to put this graphic regardless of whether their subscriber numbers are single digit or six digit.

  3. This is a great idea… but only if you have people signed up already.

    Posting how many subscribers you have is great “social proof”. If you have hundreds or thousands of subscribers, posting the number can get more people to subscribe.

    However, if you have 2 subscribers, this can work against you.

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