How to get people to subscribe to your blog

Making A Mark: Trend in subscriptions (and reach) January 2006 - July 2012

This week two things happened

1. The number of subscriptions to Making A Mark topped 4,000 - it's been a long slow climb!
2. I got a query about how to add the email subscription gadget to an art blog

I've written before about how to get subscriptions (see below) however it's a topic which never goes away!

• Blog feeds - and how to set up a Feedburner subscription facility on your blog 

If you want people to visit your blog you need to help them.

• First of all you need to activate a feed for your blog.

• Then you need to offer your visitors a subscription facility - so they can remember where to find you again and/or get your content sent to them every day.

• The top 10 items for the sidebar of an artist's blog 

I also had a big jump in subscribers when I made the subscriber links and widgets really easy to find. To start with they were half way down the side column. It was a bit like having a business card which never got handed out. Once I moved the subscription links to near the top (just under the information about visitors/subscribers) my subscriptions started to take off in a major way.

A simple explanation about how to add a subscription gadget to your blog

This was the query I received

Dear Katherine,

I am sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could help me understand how to acquire the "subscribe to this blog by email" widget or gadget or ?

I have a personal art blog on Blogger, and have been trying to figure it out on my own, but I don't understand how to get that emailing thing. Is it something that you must pay for?

I tried looking at Feedburner, but that wasn't clear to me...and I think I succeeded in putting a spot for people to "follow" my blog, but not by email, and I am not even sure I want that.

I can use my computer fairly well, but am not technically savvy, so I am probably just missing something and I don't know who else to turn to who is as blog savvy as you.

Again, I apologize for taking up your time, but if you understand what I am asking for and it won't be too much trouble, could you assist me?

Thank you very much,

I described the basics of what I do with this blog - you can find the instructions below.  They worked - the art blogger how has an email subscription form prominent on her blog! 

I have two different approaches - and described the approach for each

Get Blog Updates by Email

GET BLOG UPDATES BY EMAIL
Subscribe to Making a Mark by Email
Please note subscriptions only become live after you have verified the link in the email you will receive

This link code comes from feedburner. To get this GO TO:

• Google Feedburner http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/myfeeds while logged into your Google Account
• Select the Publicise tab
• Select email subscriptions
• Decide whether you want a form or a link - Feedburner provides code for both
• Make sure you choose the correct code for the blogging software you use
• Click the Go! box to implement the subscription form code (I choose to copy the code and then insert into an html gadget)

Use a Blogger gadget for subscriptions

SUBSCRIBE USING A FEEDREADER

 Posts

 All Comments

To get this in your side column you need to get a Blogger gadget.

• Select Layout format
• Click "add a gadget" and 
• Use the "Follow by email" gadget
• OR Use the Subscription Links gadget