WordPress has launched “follow” buttons for WordPress.com blogs, which it says will drive more traffic to your blog. Scott Berkun of WordPress says the button will “dramatically help pageviews and retention.”

Anyone that is not logged into WordPress.com can visit a site and see the button in the bottom right corner. When they click it, they’ll be asked to enter their email address to be notified when a new post has been added to your blog.

“Although the functionality is similiar to the Email subscription widget, after testing various prototypes, we learned more people clicked on the button and signed up if it were called Follow rather than Subscribe,” says Berkun. “We also know subscribe suggests to some its something you pay for, whereas follow has no such connotation.”

It’s interesting how “follow” presents something of a social media connotation, but really it’s all about email. Mark another point for email in the email vs. social media debate.

If for some reason, you don’t want to display this button on your blog, you can turn it off by going to the dashboard, clicking settings, then reading, then email.

The button only appears when people aren’t logged into WordPress.com. There’s already a follow button that appears when you’re logged in, in the admin bar at the top of the screen.

This week, WordPress also launched version 1.5 of WordPress for Android, which includes follow functionality