Since I started writing this blog, my number of subscribers has been increasing steadily. If you average it out, I’ve been getting about 2-3 new subscriptions every day. That’s not bad, if you ask me. If I keep this up, I’ll surpass Matt Cutts’ total in only 106 years! Well…that’s assuming his number of subscriptions stays exactly the same until then.
But anyways…I was looking at my subscriber stats in FeedBurner today, and I thought to myself, “I kinda want to put one of these custom FeedCount chicklets in my side bar…”
You see…one of the things I’ve noticed about human nature is that most people don’t want to think for themselves. They’d rather take the beaten path than blaze a new trail. So when you publish your number of subscribers, new visitors to your site will look at that number and think, “Lot’s of people are subscribed to this blog, so it must be good. I too will subscribe to this blog!”
The reason I like the idea of putting one of these custom FeedBurner icons on my site is because it allows me to show the World how popular I am. It’s a subtle way for me to peer-pressure my visitors into subscribing to my blog–like saying, “Come on, man…everybody’s doin’ it!”
The problem is…my FeedBurner count isn’t really high enough to pull off said psychological trickery. People might look at my subscription total and think, “WTF? This guy only has 361 subscribers? That’s weak. Screw this, I’m outta here.”
Therefore, I needed a way to…shall we say…embellish my résumé.
I considered hijacking someone else’s stats. For example, I could take the HTML code that FeedBurner gave me and simply change the name in the image src location…
<p>
<a href="http://feeds.seomofo.com/seomofo">
<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/seomofoseomoz?bg=FF6600&fg=000000&anim=0" height="26" width="88" style="border:0" alt="" />
</a>
</p>
…but the problem with that is it doesn’t let me see my actual subscriber count. Ideally, I’d like to just add a digit in front of my real number. I could have made a fake digit and absolute-positioned it over my chicklet, but that would limit me to a static .gif image and I really wanted to use one of the fancy animated .gif images to draw people’s attention to my subscribe link.
Finally, I thought of the perfect solution…
I started with the static chicklet that FeedBurner gave me:
Then I used Photoshop to pull apart the animated chicklet that FeedBurner gave me. I used the layers from that file to create my own animated .gif, except I added a 5 and left transparent holes where the static chicklet numbers could show through:
Finally, I used CSS to absolute position my animated .gif on top of the static FeedBurner chicklet:
…and voilá! My blog subscriptions just increased by 5,000!
Now that you’ve seen how it’s done, go ahead and make yourself a fake FeedBurner icon. I’ll even give you a head start by providing all the digits for you:
Oh, and one last thing…be sure to subscribe to my blog, if you haven’t already. Come on…everybody’s doing it.
{ comment Leave a comment }
Darren,
Why can’t you make SEO and web-related minutiae like Reputation Management and Crowd Behaviour boring like everybody else?
Just buckin’ the norm… Gotta be a maverick. *sigh*
Hahaha! WTF!! Scam but this is a good idea..
I’ve got a question. I do like my number (2,055) and I’d like to use the Feedburner image with the real number. But, I took it off since it slows down my whole sidebar waiting for it to display. Is there somehting you know of to make it come right up, with the right number?
And I’m using Thesis.
P.S. Interesting site
Hey Mark,
I recommend you lazy-load your FeedBurner icon, which is what I’m doing. It doesn’t appear instantly, but with this technique…your visitors won’t have to wait for it to load. In other words, after the rest of the page has loaded (and the “loading…” message has disappeared from the user’s browser), your FeedBurner icon will load silently in the background. This will also prevent the FeedBurner icon’s loading time from hurting your “Site speed” score in Google Webmaster Tools.
I wrote a fairly detailed post about the concept, using the TweetMeme button as an example, but it can be applied to the FeedBurner icon just as easily. In your case, the steps would go something like this:
1. Turn your FeedBurner icon’s HTML into a JavaScript function.
2. Save the JavaScript function in an external .js file and use your Thesis options (assuming you have Thesis 1.7) to add that .js file to the
<head>section of your pages. (Thesis => Site Options => Additional Scripts)3. Use a text widget to insert a placeholder
divinto your sidebar.4. Use the
onloadevent handler to call your FeedBurner function.In other words, you will be using JavaScript to write the HTML code into your placeholder
divAFTER the page is done loading.I’ll paste the code I’m using to accomplish this. You can customize it to suit your needs.
Sidebar text widget:
External JavaScript file:
// This is the function that writes the HTML code into my placeholder div (sub_box). // I actually insert my entire Sidebar2 content this way, but I've removed the code that doesn't apply to the FeedBurner icon. function subscribeLinks() { if (document.getElementById('sub_box')) { var subArray = new Array(); subArray.push("<div id=\"mofo_subs\">"); subArray.push(" <div id=\"sub_feedburner\">"); subArray.push(" <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.seomofo.com\/seomofo\" title=\"Subscribe to the World's Greatest SEO Blog!\"><img src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~fc\/seomofo?bg=FF6600&fg=000000&anim=0\" height=\"26\" width=\"88\" alt=\"FeedBurner readers\" \/><\/a>"); subArray.push(" <\/div>"); subArray.push("<\/div>"); var subCode = subArray.join(''); document.getElementById('sub_box').innerHTML = subCode; } } // These 4 functions all lazy-load something into my page. // The subscribeLinks function is what creates the content in my Sidebar2. window.onload = function() { subscribeLinks(); tweetMemeWidget(); mofoWidgets(); mofoCopyright(); }Hope that helps. Thanks for stopping by. :)
Thanks for the very detailed and prompt reply.
I’m still on 1.6 (since 1.7′s Page Options hangs on sites with lots of tags, so I can’t upgrade until they someday fix that). How does that affect Step #2?
You would need to use some alternative method to add your .js file to each page’s head section. The easiest way is probably to use your custom_functions.php file to add a hook. Here’s a code example you can use:
// Define custom head content if (!function_exists('my_custom_head')) { function my_custom_head() { ?> <script type="text/javascript" src="/external.js"></script><?php } } // Add custom head content add_action('wp_head', 'my_custom_head');This is pure genius. I love it. Hilarious idea if a little “gray” hat =)
Actually, I’d recommend that you check out a list of the most effective link building tactics – it should be somewhere on my blog. I think you’ll appreciate it.
Keep up the good work! =)
Yeah, its good. Sneaky and funky all at the same time but……
You’ll look like a knob when your actual total hits 1000. Ok, not actually like a knob, but the thousands digit will be hidden by your fake 5, so you’ll feel like a knob for not thinking THAT bit through.
And when you hit 5000 subscribers (which Im sure is entirely possible) you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot.
You are, still, however, with regards to the above, the Worlds Greatest SEO.
I always get the feeling that people on my sit/blog just dont get the whole subscription/feedburner thing. What convinces me even more are the number of people who subscribe and then never verify – obviously not that au fait with current standard tech.
My feedburner account is very new so I am still in double digits – crossed my mind to add some sort of stat counter but wouldn’t go as far as to edit the figures – I dunno, maybe I`m still a tad naive but I still like to thing that being mega honest and straight will pay off in the end… although I see plenty of liars making decent amounts of money in the same business I am in!!!
An alternative is the Facebook social plugin – I have added it to my sidebar and that shows all the subscribers to my facebook page – which hopefully encourages others to take a look and “like” my page too.
Look forward to the day when I can proudly display “xxxx feedburner subscribers! – I´ll keep pluggin away!
Hey there, clever way to play on people’s urges to do what others are doing. Have you seen an uptick in subscribers? I tend to shy away from counters and such, as I just don’t feel that they add value..any thoughts?
I have been wanting to do this kind of the article myself on my blog but I’ve decided against it for the simple reason that those who are not the right mind might still attempt to do (read:fake) so and damage the whole credibility of having feedburners stats.
Still, you are letting the cat out of the bag….anyway, I usually judge the popularity of a blog not by the no. of subscribers but by the no. of comments on each post instead.
Nice,first way of changing CODE in IMG SRC is good,coz to get your real subscribers we can navigate to : http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~fc/sitenamexxx
Its so simple :) Its good for those who are not perfect in PS :D like me !!!!