Do You Read Your Own Blog?
Whew! What a question, huh?! But really – Do You Read Your Own Blog?
Do You Know what your regular readers view each time they get new content from you?
I think it is overlooked by many bloggers and can’t quite understand why – Your Blog RSS Feed is one of the ways you deliver your content, I’m sure you are proudly displaying that badge with number of RSS readers but have you taken the time to regularly check how your content presented in multiple RSS readers?
I’m not talking about each and every reader, but you have to check at least some of the most popular to ensure that message you are delivering on your blog conveyed properly to people who have chosen the convenience of RSS Subscription
While there are MANY ways people access your content provided by RSS – I like to check some of the most popular and here are some of the stats provided by FeedBurner for my blog:

As you can see above I have rather large number of subscribes via aweber RSS so I make it my priority to subscribe to my own feed via email and check it each time I publish post but I also highlighted a few other RSS News aggregators responsible for delivering my content to readers.
While you don’t have to subscribe to each using each and every service – I highly recommend you at least check out how your content presented in the most used by your readers.
You work hard on creating content – be sure your presentation is consistent! Read Your Own Blog!
…and let me know what you think!
Related articles on RSS
- 5 Reasons Why Readers Unsubscribe from Blog’s RSS Feed (shoutmeloud.com)
- How I Broke 100,000 RSS Readers (johnchow.com)
- Why Bloggers Should Use Feedburner (bloggingwithbeth.com)
- Real Simple Syndication – RSS in plain English (antonrsa.co.za)
- How to take control of your RSS feed reader… (shannonturlington.com)









A great point, Alex – I find many of the bloggers I speak to aren’t even really aware of their feed, except to ping it with each post which most do via plugins anyway. What’s your own preferred RSS reader?
Doug Champigny recently posted..Start Affiliate Marketing Home
I just use Google Reader – does things nicely for me
I subscribe via email. I never thought to check readers, since I don’t use one myself.
I’d like to think true followers would announce any problems they were having.
Dennis Edell recently posted..Sub Categories and Drop Down Menus – What’s the Deal?
I like Dennis above only use email subscription (in fact if a site doesn’t offer it then I wouldn’t subscribe at all!). It’s a good idea to check this out which I must admit that I’m not doing at the moment.
Neil recently posted..My 4 Priorities For a Happy Life
Definitely a good idea. Obviously check your work before it goes out; but frankly, why wouldn’t you subscribe to your own feed?? It just makes sense! Good post.
Great point Alex and like you I use Google Reader primarily and do have my blogs showing there but should go check some of the other popular readers just to be sure.
Like browsers I am sure that not all readers are displaying it exactly the same.
Mike Paetzold recently posted..The Real Secret They Don’t Tell You
Yes, great idea. I subscribe to my own feed via my RSS reader, as well as via eMail; just so I can check out possible errors.
Picked up a beauty a few months back – being that I do podcasts, I realized that my “podcast” download link wasn’t appearing in the RSS feed… whoa, huge error. Got it fixed straight away.
Thanks for putting it on paper Alex; this will get my “Share”.
- Paul Barrs
Paul Barrs recently posted..Your First Month Master Plan 07
That calls for a self intro. Personally, I am very poor at proof reading and rechecking before I post. And some of my blogs run on my own self-designed themes that’s not good at typography and layout in others’ eyes.
As for reading other blogs, I usually use reader for those blogs that I read once a week/month or so. For regularly followed blogs, I just type in the URl or access from the bookmark.
What I have also seen is that, even when one has a feed subscription count say 1000, hardly 5-10 people read it via feed per day.
Ajith Edassery recently posted..Are you selling your stocks at the wrong time?
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the reminder. Your post brings up good points.
While I have checked my blog in Google reader and in Yahoo feed I think that as you say I should monitor it in a few more to see what my RSS feed readers see.
I have to admit I wasn’t aware of Aweber RSS.
Do you use a full RSS feed or a snippet for your posts?
Vance
Vance Sova recently posted..Internet Marketing Tool- Should You Get Apple Mac Or Windows PC
Yes.. sometimes i also read my blog. especially after the completion of a new post.
Azuan recently posted..Uruguay Vs Netherlands di Separuh Akhir FIFA World Cup 2010
Here I am thinking that the only thing that matters is how your blog looks in the web browsers. I only deliver my feed via Feedburner so I guess it should look the same for everyone right?
Udegbunam Chukwudi recently posted..Sht Can Happen With Reseller Web Hosting Take Note!
Hi Alex,
I love to read my own blog ha ha.
However I had not signed up to my own feed, but that’s done now.
I don’t have aweber rss set up, so that’s my next mission today.
Great post, thanks for sharing it, I am getting so much helpful information from your blog, so I definitely read yours.
Sally

Sally recently posted..To Be The Interviewer Or Interviewee That Is The Question…
I also agree with subscribing to your own blog so that you may also know on how you communicate with your readers with your content.
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