In theory, this represents your “subscriber core” and indicates how ’sticky’ your content is.

You might think this blog fares abysmally, according to Text Link Ads “Blog Juice” calculator.

A 5.4 out of a supposed 10 ranking?

Let’s look at the components of the score:

• Bloglines: the number of Bloglines subscribers (accounts for 40% of score)
• Alexa: ranking determines 15%
• Technorati: 30%
• Links: Inbound links 15% (determined fromTechnorati).

From the example above, the low number of bloglines subscribers (32) has hit my rankings hard.

De-emphasizing bloglines subscribers and feedburner subscribers (also a set of RSS subscribers) would be detrimental to your rankings.

Why would anyone want to do this?

In that case, why would a blogger deliberately aim for low RSS subscriber numbers?

Simple. Three reasons.

1. Control
2. Relationship building
3. Branding

Instead of building feedburner/bloglines RSS readership, I’ve built a traditional list.

• Control

Unlike indirect communication with my readers via a RSS feed, I can communicate directly with them via the opt-in list services provided by aweber or getresponse.

This gives me the opportunity to determine how often I communicate with my list and how I do so. I’m not merely restricted to just blog posts.

• Relationship Building

Having a list and control over the emails gives me flexibility in building the relationship gradually.

I can queue a variety of welcome posts, and staggered communication which can ease a new subscriber into the flow of things.

• Branding

I can customize branded posts, personalized to the list members, and have highly targeted and relevant offers sent to the members.

I believe an opt-in list brands you more effectively, compared to a RSS publishing service.

So it’s true that you give up the blog popularity ‘point score’ based on the number of perceived subscribers, but the intangible benefits you’ll gain are unparalled.

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Resources:

List Building Autoresponders-

• Aweber
• GetResponse
• Text Link Ads (Good for building link popularity, $100 free credit)