RSS Subscriber Increase = Falling Alexa Rank + Less AdSense Revenue
As regular readers know, I’ve been on a push lately to increase the number of subscribers to this blog. I’ve even started giving away stuff to my subscribers by making downloads available only via the RSS feed or in the email versions of my posts. (See the subscription page for both options.)
I was pretty sure that one of the side effects of this push, however, would be to see a big drop in my Alexa rank. And that’s exactly what’s happening. Here’s the graph for the last three months:
As you can see, the site’s about to consistently fall below the 100,000 mark.
Do I care about my Alexa rank? Not really. It’s an imperfect measure to begin with and by encouraging people to use RSS I get a better feel for how many people are actually reading my material and what they’re responding to. I can also have public conversations with my readers via the comments.
But if you’ve monetized your blog then be aware of the downsides of increasing your subscriber base, especially with AdSense. RSS subscribers generally don’t see your AdSense ads because they read your posts through a specialized feed reader. This is one reason I’ve long inserted “Sponsored By” links at the bottom of my posts — it’s a subscriber-friendly monetization technique.
As your subscriber base increases, though, other monetization opportunities may open up. At some point I recommend displaying your subscriber count on the blog using recognized stats (like Feedburner) in order to convince potential advertisers that your words have “reach”. (Not that those stats are perfect, either — my Feedburner stats don’t count the 100+ people who subscribe to this blog via email, for example.)
Sponsored Link: Purchase the EzineArticles Domination reports and get a free tool I wrote as a bonus.
Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense and the award-nominated (that just means it lost!) blog Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense.
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AdSense, Alexa, blog, FeedBurner, Google, monetization, RSS, subscribers, traffic
Comments
5 Responses to “RSS Subscriber Increase = Falling Alexa Rank + Less AdSense Revenue”
Interesting post Eric, never saw it that way before even though the inverse relation makes perfect sense.
I’m not a fan of using adsense to monetize blogs though. I believe in the long run, your RSS feed readers will bring in more money for you through promotions and all.
Alvin Huang
I don’t think there’s a cut-and-dry answer for every blog. Every blog is different, so for some AdSense will work well and for others it won’t work so well. The key is to realize where you visitors are coming from and plan accordingly…
I’ve got blogs that make money (nothing massive, a 3 figure income) though text link ads. I’d hate to think what would happen to that with a reduced Alexa score. Maybe they’d drop off in value, maybe people would be less inclined to pay money for an ad on a lower traffic blog, whatever the page rank.
I don’t know, but it scares me
A 3 figure monthly income, that should say. Three figure annual and I’d take the ads off completely and blog for the sake of blogging
(BTW. This usually exceeds the adsense income on most sites of mine).
Right, this is why you have to think carefully about what you’re doing. I don’t have text link ads on this site, so it doesn’t matter to me if the Alexa rank drops. If you’re concerned about Alexa rank then you need to do things that convince people to visit the blog rather than just read it. There’s a difference….