The SEO News Blog from Pat Marcello

I had a blogging question from a friend, who asked why Feedburner might be better than a plugin she’s using in her WordPress blog right now. I can’t say that I’m familiar with the plugin, but I can tell you, Renee, that Feedburner is the bomb!

Why? Well… it’s owned by Google now, for starters. That doesn’t always mean good things for SEO purposes, but in terms of blogging metrics… Feedburner tells you tons of stuff that you just can’t get elsewhere.

Feedburner tells you how many subscribers you had on a day-to-day basis. It shows you what they clicked in your feed, and what feed reader they’re using. It also shows you which posts got the most hits, and how many people clicked on which links in your feed. You can also get a map of where your readers are coming from.

You can also see where your content is being published, which is pretty cool, and you can publicize your subscribers with some of their buttons.

The whole Optimize section is sweet, and you can tell Feedburner what you do and don’t want it to do with your feed. You can have it compatible with any browser and select the subscribe buttons to go alongside it. You can make your feed compatible with any reader, too. Feed Flare lets your subscribers email your feed, save it to a bookmarking service, and tons of other stuff that flat feeds just don’t allow, and gives you the code to add these same buttons to your blog.

A very cool SEO advantage is that Feedburner allows you to add a title and description to your feed. Very cool. You can make money from your feed, too. You can add Google AdSense and your Amazon Associates ID, and be paid as you would from any other location.

I could go on and on because there’s a lot more stuff at Feedburner, but it’s definitely worth a look, and here’s the best part… it’s free. You don’t really have to do anything very technical, except add the feed address for your blog. You can find that in the META data widget in your blog, which shows “Entries RSS.” Just copy the link to that page, and you’re all set.

So, Renee? Think you want to try it?

Are you building a good following at Twitter? I am. I love hanging out there. Don’t post a TON like some folks, but I manage to get a blog post and a link or two in a day and love #followfriday. Total fun stuff.

But if you’re building a list at Twitter to market to the people on your list, well… you can, but for how long? I mean, Twitter is awesome, and though I’m hoping it will be around a long, long time, I’ve been on the Internet a long, long time, and…

Stuff that was HUGE way back then, like Usenet (bulletin board type spaces that are more like today’s forums) or IRC (Internet Relay Chat, like today’s chatrooms except you can get to them from the Word Wide Web), for example are so used to was now.

An email list is permanent, at least until your subscribers decide that they don’t want to be on your list anymore. But their loyalty will stand the test of time.

Twitter may be a passing fancy, and if you spend a lot of time trying to build an enormous following without building your email list at the same time, well… I don’t think you’re looking very far into the future.

Remember how everything was so MySpace a couple of years ago? Or, how about when Yahoo was the premiere search vehicle? Alta Vista doesn’t even exist anymore, and we used to think it was pretty great until Google came along. And so…

It’s the Internet. Prepare for it. Get the people who are enjoying your Tweets today onto your email list. That’s the only way you’ll be able to keep them as your customers for a long time to come.

Just sayin’…

Wow! We just gave a Ferrari computer monitor away to one of our ListBuilding Club members. He joined the Easter JVGiveaway and got like more than 1,000 people added to his list. That’s hot! Plus, he sold $1,500 in products.

Are giveaways worth messing with?

Absolutely! I had a product in the Easter JV Giveaway myself, and they have worked pretty well for  me. You get a share of people who download your gift and then unsubscribe right away. Kind of cheesy, but people do it. And you get your share of people who give bad email addresses.  So, be sure not to give away your product until after the people have confirmed to be on your list.

But overall, I have to say that I’ve had a lot of success with building my list through giveaways.  Try them, and if it makes sense, upgrade your membership so that your gift gets higher up in the list of gifts. Some of these have thousands of gifts in them.

Here are a couple that are just opening:

Jason James’ Greedy Giveaway : He’s looking for established marketers with lists. So, if you’re just starting and have no list, this one won’t be for you.

Reed Floren’s Free IM Giveaway

I did one with Reed last year that really paid off. Made money and got subscribers, so that was pretty cool.

But what if you’re not in the IM niche?

You can find giveaways in health & fitness and in relationships. Or, start your own! Jason James’ JV Giveaway Riches Software is killer.  Set up a giveaway for your niche if you can’t find one. They’re even better for the Giveaway owner. They build an enormous list, and with all the OTOs and upsells, you also make a pile of cash.

Giveaways are often bashed. People say that you get unresponsive lists from them, but I don’t find this to be the case. If you write to your list often, and make them aware of free stuff or give them lots of cool instruction, they’ll love you forever, regardless of where they came from.

Try a giveaway… They’re easy to do and they work like gangbusters.