The downside of RSS? no traffic?

[The Wise Buck]

I put a ? after my post because I may be missing something

This came across my mind the other day. If my readers subscribe to my blog and are aggregating through Google Reader or similar, doesn't that prevent them from actually coming to my blog and counting as traffic?

How do you deal with this? Just curious is I am missing something here.

Thanks,

Mike

[moneymatters]

It's just another way to build a readership and connection with your readers. It allows people who like reading your blog to be able to read it on a regular basis when without RSS they may forget about your site and not visit as often. If you're concerned about page views not being as high because of RSS (i don't think that's necessarily the case), you can always include only excerpts of your content so that people still have to come to your site. that has it's own risks,however, because many people won't even subscribe to your feed unless you have a full content feed.

[bhkyra]

I agree with moneymatters.

People are funny creatures. I have RSS on a few different blogs. Sometimes, I'll get distracted by different things, and I'll forget about the blogs I was reading. When I get around to checking the RSS feeds, I almost always go to the actual blog to read the posts. There seems to be something more fulfilling to go to the actual blog and read the post than to just read the feed.

[mbhunter]

Having an RSS feed outweighs not having one if you're giving your content away. Not having a feed is a barrier to people accessing your content.

Not many people have partial feeds anymore, and this is a good thing.

[Philip Brewer]

You don't want traffic. Traffic is worth almost nothing. What you want are readers.

Readers are the people who link to your posts. Readers are the people who share your posts with their friends. Readers are the people who digg, reddit, and stumble your posts. Readers are the people who, after reading an interesting post in their RSS feed reader come to the post to see what other commentors said and to add a comment.

Readers are of great value. Cherish them. The main way you cherish them is by providing good content over and over again. But making your content available in an RSS feed is another small way to cherish your readers.

Traffic follows readers, not the other way around. Get readers and the traffic (for what little it's worth) will follow.

[moneymatters]

Not sure i agree 100% that "you don't want traffic" but instead "readers".

I think regular traffic can be important as well, especially if your blog generates income from adsense or other advertising. Search visitors are more likely to be clicking on your ads, and generating revenue for your site as well.

Regular readers are important to building a presence, giving your site credibility, etc - but at the same time search visitors and traffic is important to monetizing a site. I think it's a combination of the two that make a successful site.

[The Wise Buck]

Thanks for the responses. I agree an RSS feed is a tool and a way to keep in touch with my readers.

I think most people who read via RSS ultimately come to the site as long as you are providing enough value for them.

Mike