I have tried to set up some kind of newsletter sign up plugin on nearly every single site I’ve built, but you know what? I don’t write newsletters. I’ve tried. I just can’t make myself. Go to most make money type blogs and they’ll tell you your newsletter subscribers are the lifeblood of your blog.
I have a hard enough time staying consistent in posting regularly. I can’t come up with even more content for a newsletter even if most of it is simply recycled material. I realize this now, so I don’t fight it. At one time I had high hopes of using AWeber just like all the big dogs use. I also checked out a free alternative to the paid email marketing tools with PhpList Newsletter too. In the end it doesn’t matter because I know what I’ll use to write my newsletter; nothing!
Is this website suicide? Do I deserve an “F” in website revenue generation 101? Am I leaving money on the table since I can’t pitch some affiliate wares to loyal readers/visitors? Just because most of the super successful bloggers out there provide a newsletter doesn’t mean I have to, right? I’m in need of a simpler solution.
It turns out that simpler solution was one I had been familiar with all along. Feedburner! I had played around with Feedburner long before it was ever a Google asset. So why did I not stick with simple? I think at one point I wanted everything to be my own. I didn’t like piggybacking on a blog site for a name, I wanted my own domain. I didn’t want to use themes or plugins that advertised other websites, I wanted to brand my site and name. I didn’t want my visitors going to another site to sign up to receive information from me, I wanted to control that flow of information.
History has made it painfully clear to me that I can’t control the information I don’t create. I need simple and I need to let go worrying about sharing the credit with products and services helping me. I’ve decided to implement an extremely simple Feedburner form (for all you gluttons for punishment) to sign up and receive my new posts via email. Check it out at the very top of the right sidebar. I told you it was simple.
What prompted me to go back to using Feedburner was when I noticed it at DailyBlogTips, a site I often find myself clicking link after link reading posts. Right there at the top is his “Posts by Email” Feeburner link. Everything about this site screams KISS principle and it’s one of the most popular blogs out there. If it’s good enough for this guy, it’s good enough for this Hack.