As you can see from the graph above, the number of RSS and RSS to email subscribers of Online Marketing Blog has grown substantially since we moved over to WordPress and updated the design. Participating in a little social media optimization hasn’t hurt either. 🙂
One of the metrics we look at with client blogs as well as our own are the most popular RSS feed readers and aggregators used. This influences the RSS chicklets or buttons used to promote the feed.
Checking the Feedburner stats for Online Marketing Blog there are 118 different RSS readers logged. I suspect 30 or so of those are blog bots. Here’s the distribution of top ten RSS readers from most to least popular for this blog:
All Time
Bloglines
FeedBlitz
Pageflakes
NewsGator Online
Firefox Live Bookmarks
Netvibes
Rojo
My Yahoo
BlogBridge
Past 30 days
Bloglines
Pageflakes
FeedBlitz
Rojo
NewsGator Online
Netvibes
Firefox Live Bookmarks
My Yahoo
BlogBridge
Past 7 days
Bloglines
Pageflakes
FeedBlitz
Rojo
NewsGator Online
Netvibes
Firefox Live Bookmarks
My Yahoo
FeedReader
One Day
Pageflakes
Bloglines
FeedBlitz
Rojo
NewsGator Online
Netvibes
Firefox Live Bookmarks
My Yahoo
FeedReader
It’s interesting to see that Pageflakes has increased in usage to take the top spot for one day’s stats. Also, the FeedBlitz RSS to email service consistently ranks in the top 3. If you’re not offering a RSS to email option for users on your blog, you are missing out on potentially 15-30% of your possible subscribers.
I would be curious to know what the top RSS readers are on other SEO blogs. Maybe it’s time for a survey!
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About Lee Odden
FYI I use Google Reader which isn’t represented above. 🙂
It might be interesting to watch how IE7 influences these results over the next year or with its integrated RSS functionality. Haven’t installed it myself, but I’ve heard from a few folks that the syndication bit is nothing special. I’m sure it’ll capture a large percentage of subscribers who don’t know/care about feeds and just want to “save stuff, read stuff.”
On my site Bloglines and Newsgator are by far the most popular.
Lee – I’ve been watching similar trends in my stats, and the one thing that stands out on my blog is that Google Reader has really jumped dramatically in the past 2-3 weeks. I’m sure I don’t have the traffic you do, so it’s easier for such a big shift to happen — but nonetheless, it’s a noticeable change. I’m surprised Google Reader doesn’t crack any of your lists above.
I use NetNewsWire, represented here by News Gator Online.
Most popular I’ve got include FeedBlitz, BlogLnes, Newsgator.
Good point Adam. As popular as RSS is with the likes of us, there’s a mass market out there of “unaware” RSS users that may resonate with the “save stuff, read stuff” capabilities of IE7.
Hey Matt, I was thinking the same thing. I see that you use Feedburner as well. How exactly is Google Reader represented in your Feedburner stats?
Hi Lee – interesting. It really validates the benefits of having options to give your readers.
Phil
I use Bloglines and I’m pretty happy with what the Ask guys did with it.
I use Google Reader as well. My users tend to be older, and use Google Reader or Google Homepage.
I, too, get a good-sized audience from FeedBlitz RSS to E-Mail.
Lee – Feedburner appears to have trouble counting subscribers via Google Reader. It ranks very low in my Feedburner stats. My comments above are from my Performancing Metrics acct., where Reader shows up quite heavily over the past couple weeks in the referrers section.
Finally, I now have some supporting data to help me determine the best arrangement for my “add RSS” chiclets! 🙂
Very interesting info … thanks a lot for sharing.
-ASG
For a different view of top RSS feed readers, see the FeedCycle homepage
This has an updating list of top feed readers for that service
Yeah, I thought Google Reader would be listed as well.
I use it constantly. Next to FeedDemon, it’s my reader of choice.
JD
Hmm. This is good data. Now just to put it to use. I don’t see this in use on your page though. Why is that?
Cocoliso, put your cursor over the large, orange RSS button at the top right of the page. You’ll see the various RSS readers displayed.
PageFlakes makes up most of my subscribers followed by BlogLines.
I am testing Rojo right and it seems to have moved past NewsGator and NetVibes to number 3.
Yeah, I was a bit surprised myself to see PageFlakes so high. I had not used it before.
only one app. rocks 4 me
it’s Ideafarms i-Fetch.
check it out the link is given above