You spend time creating a blog strategy, writing content and promoting it to your readers and fans. But, how can you reach and engage with even more readers? By having a blog subscriber’s list, you are ensuring the people who want to read your content can easily access it.  It may seem pretty simple, write content and the readers will come. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. We have outlined a few opportunities to help grow your subscriber’s list.

Make it Easy to Do

There’s nothing more frustrating than reading an article and then not being able to find out how to join the subscriber list. “Loved this article, I want more straight to my inbox… but where do I sign up?” That’s a major mistake – so don’t make it! Have a clear call-to-action (CTA) for readers to subscribe to your blog.

Find the Right Placement

This one is more challenging. What are your options?

• Subscribe box in the sidebar?
• A header that follows you as you read?
• A footer?
• What about a pop up box?

All are viable options, it really depends on your capabilities and what works best for you audience. Test out what is converting – who is clicking where and filling out their information and then leverage that for the future. Look at how this company removed their blog sidebar and increased conversions. What works for one company may not work for every company, so that’s why we recommend testing it out for a few months and see what works. If you can use smart CTAs through HubSpot – you have more opportunities to test out messaging, imagery and location to find out what works.  For us, we have it in the sidebar (subtle hint: fill it out to get more great content to your inbox).

Popular Webpages

Just because it’s a blog subscription CTA doesn’t mean it only has to be on the blog. Here are a few places to look to put your CTA to hopefully increase your subscribers.

• Highest-trafficked blog pages: add in a special CTA in these blogs at the end or at the top. If they’re being read by so many people – then you catch their attention and most importantly, their emails.
• Your About Us page – well, why not? Your content is a great way to get to know your business and if they are interested in learning more about you – then they may be interested in learning from your business, too!
• Your Homepage: If one of your main business goals is to increase your blog subscribers, then it’s worth testing out a CTA or a banner encouraging readers to subscribe. It can be a static CTA or it can be a rotating banner, just make it clear what you are asking of them and what they’ll receive in response.
• Your blog: This may seem like a no-brainer, but don’t forget about it. Have a place where your readers can easily fill out the form and get your blog to their inbox.

Ask for It

You know all of those handy-dandy resources that you’re creating and the landing pages that you’ve created to gather information from potential customers? Yes? Well, one great way to increase your blog subscribers is to include a check box at the bottom of the form that asks them if they want more great content like this resource right in their inbox…score. You just added more people to your subscriber list.

Make an Offer they Can’t Refuse

One of the best ways to increase your blog subscribers is to create content that they can’t live without. Give them special access to information or resources first, because they are subscribers. Share news with them first or give them VIP access to an event or webinar because they are subscribers. The more enticing the offer, the better chance they are going to enter their email and become a follower.