I covered most of the normal ways to increase RSS subscriptions in my last post. Now I want to talk about an evil way of doing it. Why? Because it’s good to be good, but it’s better to be evil. 
Fill The Blog With Advertising
You begin by applying to as many ad networks as you can quality for and then add them to the blog. If you don’t know what networks to apply for, here’s a big list of 130 ad networks you can join now. That should get you started.
Once you flood the blog with ads from 130 networks, you put a note next to your highly visible RSS button that reads, “Don’t like ads? Subscribe to the full feed RSS and read this blog ad free!”
Keep in mind that the biggest reason people will subscribe to your RSS is because of good frequently updated content. If your content isn’t good, there’s no reason to read your blog, much less subscribe to it.
Please note – This post is meant more in fun than anything serious. However, presenting a RSS as an ad free way to read your content does help to increase subscriptions.
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{ 32 comments }
Thanks for the tips! I may do this, but not spam my whole blog with more ads then i do actual content
Reverse psychology!
It’s less like reverse psychology and more like electro-shock therapy
Your RSS is getting huge. It’s been fun watching the site grow.
I agree. It’s fun to watch more RSS subscribers hop on board….but this post is evil….lol
Very Evil John very evil. I like it…not practical but I like it.
Nope, don’t want to,
U said it yourself, rss feed it’s ur killer for the income in monetizing ur web. I’m stil far from big ads like U. And putting a lot of ads is a bad impression for my web, next evil tips John
That all depends on how you monetize. That’s why sponsored blogging is so popular now. It gets to the RSS readers as well. Most of the popular sponsored blogging programs use RSS feed count in some way as a measure of the quality of your blog.
But you’re completely right if you’re monetizing with CPC ads.
Your RSS fluctuates, no? In any case, this tip is good to know. Thanks for linking back to your ad list — I didn’t know you had one.
I agree with Great Dog, it’s huge and it’s fun watching it grow!
Some one know about rss stadistics?
dude if I find such a blog I’ll never visit it again…
And I bet most will do the same way.
You’ll lose most of the newcommers and be left with the oldtimers.
Or you’ll make a ton of money off the CPC while keeping the old timers happy
I think there are a lot better ways to get subscribers than turn basically into a commercial or splog
I read your blog, from rss with google reader but only the title, I always come here to read the post, I really do not know why, just did it.
I call it the John Chow effect — he’s evil, you know LOL.
That is a very evil way of getting subscriptions.
john I think that you ran out of ideas for today and should come back tomorrow…nah just kidding gave me a little lol
I wonder if the next post will be how to monetize RSS feeds.
Monetizing RSS Feeds would a nice article to see next.
I think theres been a post or two on monetizing rss feeds before, eh?
Yeah but you can’t monetize them as well as a website.
evil ways evil traffic
John, you are evil. But practically cannot apply
Wow another cool Evil Publicity Stunt by John
You Rock 
A little too evil for my taste. But, hey…I like to have fun too.
This is not sound advice,–your WHOLE purpose should get visitor to your site, not RSS feed…LOL…This is kinda back-ward. But hey, John say that “…it should NOT be taken seriously…” =P. (You’ll scare away you visitors to the RSS bunker, with all ads on your site
.
Just M-H-O.
but dont you want visitors to visit your site to increase alexa and google?
I don’t know how it happens, but the RSS readers number and the visitors number are correlated. At least in my case, in the days with bigger traffic, I get more RSS readers than usual.
I thought I will get something new and useful…
Lol I like the sense of humor.
That’s so incredibly cruel to your audiences! hahah
-Sam from Market Matador