The Experiment:

There has been a lot of speculation that if you are showing low subscriber count to your feed, people may be less likely to subscribe to it. I figured I would try to either prove or debunk that theory. I manipulated jetpacked.com’s subscriber count to be a few thousand subscribers more than it actually is, and after a little bit over a week, our subscriber count didn’t change much, and even lowered at some points. So through this experience, I wouldn’t listen to the bloggers who tell people not to show your subscriber count right off the bat. It’s all a matter of whether you want to show off or not. If you’re embarrassed to show your low count, then don’t. If you really don’t care, and are confident enough to think people will subscribe to your feed anyway, go for it. The bottom line is, if people like your content, they will subscribe to your feed regardless what the number of current subscribers is.

How to manipulate your feed count:

Part II

Back in April, I wrote an article called “How to manipulate your FeedBurner feed count.” The article described a process that was certainly one clever way to do it. But when I was doing the current experiment, I had to think of a way to manipulate the subscriber count, without actually adding fake subscribers. I didn’t want the count to be false forever. So I found a plugin, the same plugin used to show chicklet free stats. It’s called FeedCount by Francesco Mapelli. In the newest version of the plugin, you can show a subscriber count from one feed, while linking to completely different feed. Like so:

As you can see, I pulled the feed count from the 5thirtyone feed, but still linked to the jetpacked feed. This made it appear like Jetpacked.com usually had over 3000 subscribers, when it usually has around 80 or so. Please keep in mind that this was only for experimentation.
Don’t lie about your feed count, it may make your blog look popular, but it won’t bring more people to your site, or make your content any better.

I’ve gotten a few emails asking how I display the feedburner subscriber stats like I do so I just wanted go ahead and fill in anyone else who is wondering. It is done via a wordpress plugin and a little bit of CSS. Check out Collis’ post at NorthXEast called ” Free Your Subscriber Stats ” for more info on the plugin and the process. If anyone has any trouble with the CSS or anything, shoot me an email and I’ll see if I can help you out.

When your traffic takes a turn for the worse, don’t be discouraged. On they days where my traffic is at it’s lowest, I try to stay positive by remembering that every 100 uniques is 100 people. Online, most people wouldn’t think 100 viewers is a lot, but when you find yourself thinking like this, look at it as if you were standing in a room, and 100 people surrounded you and were listening to what you have to say. It really changes your perspective on numbers doesn’t it?

I received a beta invite from Reinvigorate.net a few days ago. Reinvigorate is a new website statistics service, and in my opinion one of the best ones out there. I am very impressed with their ability to lay out and organize site data the way they do, and I would choose them over Statcounter or Google Analytics without thinking twice. If your into tracking your website stats, check them out and apply for the beta, you won’t be disappointed.