wordpress: RSS vc newsletter

Gert Leroy · #1 (**permalink**) 11-20-2007, 03:24 PM

hi,
i'm setting up my personal wordpress blog

I wonder should i add a newsletter module since i allready have RSS?
i mean, if here would be any kind of announcement to be made that RSS doesn't cover (read: that isn't written in a post) shouldn't it be better to make a post of it so RSS can pick it up?

what are your thoughts about that?

bj · #2 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 06:05 PM

Though they're getting rarer, some people don't yet feel comfortable with RSS and subscriptions.

You might consider doing this, it creates a newsletter out of your blog's rss feed and it's free. It can also be templated to match your blog, if you're clever. And the code snippet to add the signup form to your blog is pretty easy to add.

Zookoda

Orion · #3 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 06:29 PM

Ideally would be if everyone would signup and subscribe to your blog then any posts, they get notified, and they can choose categories.

But like BJ said, it's still greek to those not geek.. so newsletter might be the way to go!

craigmn3 · #4 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 09:05 PM

You don't state whether or not SEO or treatment of the search engines to your blog is important to you, however you can look at our present host as a great example.

Webproworld has a great website, but I would believe many of us, enter into from the newsletter they send to us daily. I wait around for the e-mail to come. I could just as easily pick up all the content by logging on and going right to their site.....but I don't do that very often because I am usually pretty busy. However when the WPW email comes...I take a breather from all the web work and the crush of business, sip a soda and check into the dealings of the world of Web professionals.

From a pure marketing stand point , sending a news letter is a great way to bring people into your blog.

From an SEO standpoint it's a great way to get all your non-sequitor information out to your group.
But I would make a webpage (or a blog post) for each newsletter anyway, because it's all content.

garywhw · #5 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 09:27 PM

If you want a real life statistics from real life people, here :

I do not use RSS. Newsletter is my preference.

khurramali · #6 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 10:42 PM

most people might have not a news reader or an RSS reader software installed on their computers.

most people are familiar with newsletters, they know what to expect when they sign up.

You already have Rss with Wordpress, try putting up a newsletter there and collect some statistics.

Orion · #7 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 11:50 PM

Wow craigmn3, what an awesome example.. I do exactly the same! lol..

dean · #8 (**permalink**) 11-22-2007, 09:57 AM

The webproworld.com example is an excellent one. I rarely just peruse the site, but I like the daily newsletter. The newsletter seems to be pretty easy to make, simply highlighting a few posts from the day. If it wasn't for the newsletter, I would probably visit only once in a while, but with the newsletter, I visit almost daily.

Gert Leroy · #9 (**permalink**) 11-23-2007, 04:45 PM

thanks bj for the Zookoda link
i have installed it and it works fine!
just one remark:
the standard confirmation page is on the Zookoda server.
i want to customize it and make a wordpress-page as confirmation page.
something like www.domain.com/blog/confirmation-page/

Problem is that this page shows up in the list of "pages" for my blog.
I know you can disable page-IDs in the page-widget, but the pages also show up on top of my blog, as seen in the majority of wordpress-themes, and widgets only work for sidebars..

is there another way to create a confirmation-page in wordpress?