Should I offer a full RSS feed to my blog readers? Why?

RSS feeds or site feeds are one of the cool ways to spread your content around the web. It’s an unique way to keep in touch with a blog without even visiting. Now as a publisher, you have the option whether you want to offer Full RSS feeds or only post teasers. Let’s see what’s the best option for bloggers.

I want to bring visitors to my blog

If you set short RSS feeds, then your readers must visit your blog to read the full post. So if you’re thinking that you want real visitors who will read your blog by visiting your site, then you might want these things,

Increasing the number of site visitors
I want them to comment and participate
I want them to click on ads
I want more readership

I want to give more ease to my readers

If you want to give your readers a unique and comfortable way to read your blog, then you must offer full RSS feeds. You might want these things,

I want them to read my blog posts easily
I want them to get the updates faster
I want them to read my blog for a long time
I want more readership

No matter what you decide, you have one common goal, “More readership.” It’s harder to be ones favorite blog. Every time a new visitor comes to your site and gets interested in it, he looks for a faster way to remember the site. Most people will bookmark it and tech savvy people will add your feed on their feed readers. People who are unaware of rss feeds, they will subscribe via email.

The bad thing about short RSS feeds

When your reader tries to read your blog in RSS, he’ll see only first 250 words in his software; your email reader will receive emails with only 250 words -that means they have to click to the link to read that post. Here they will “Unsubscribe” from your blog because if they’re unable to read in RSS, so what’s the point of subscribing?

They may come to your blog within few days for new updates, but soon they will forget about your blog. And what does that means? -you just lost an interested reader.

Full RSS feed means longer lasting readership

I found that an RSS or email subscriber usually doesn’t unsubscribe from a blog. Your subscribers will still be there even if you stopped writing for a long time. This is the power of offering full RSS feeds.

The conclusion: You should always offer Full RSS feeds!

Your RSS readers are the longer lasting supporter of your blog. They are the ones who are reading from you for a long time. By subscribing, they have decided to read from your blog forever and they will promote your posts. If you want real profit in the long run, then you should always offer full feeds.

How to set up full RSS feeds?

In wordpress: Go to Settings > Reading, select “Full text” for “For each article in a feed, show”
In blogger: Go to Settings > Site feed > select “Full” for “Allow blog feeds”