With the relative explosion of web logs and blogging software dozens, if not hundreds, of web sites can easily produce complex, in-depth and easily navigable web sites that can be on a specific topic, or can be as general as a diary. The end result of this, regardless of how one does it, is to get page views and have a steady readership. Accomplishing both of these can cause you to easily outgrow the limits on free services, or add extra cost when hosting your own service.

One of the most popular ways to increase readership is to use RSS-XML feeds. An RSS feed is a simple XML document structured in a way that outlines recent posts, usually including a link to the post, a title and a description. These files can then be used by other sites in their page or used with programs called aggregators.

An aggregator is a software program that uses the RSS files and displays them in the program, allowing you to read the headlines and even the stories without even going to the website. These tools are very handy to readers of weblogs, instead of going to multiple web sites every day, I currently have 96 sites in mine, just check them all in one program.

While an increase in readership is a great thing, there is a significant downside to having an aggregator feed, the actual lack of pageviews for your site. While that alone might not seem to be a big deal, people are reading your content after all, it encompasses several areas that really do add up.

• If you have other content on your site besides just a blog the people who use the feed will miss out on those parts of your site.
• If you have the ability for users to leave comments they'll be less likely to comment if they can read without going to your page.
• Bust most importantly is advertising. Many self run blogs use advertising, such as banners, affiliate links and paypal or amazon donate links, to help pay the bills. While free weblogs use advertising to pay for the free services provided.

When people don't visit your actual site, they don't see any of that.

What can a blogrunner do to counter people just reading the feed in the aggregator of their choice? There are several options available that can make people visit your site, or make it known what they can do to support your site.

The first option is to make the RSS feed a headline only one. Instead of sending out the story with the feed just send the headline. If a person is intrigued by the headline they'll have to visit your site to read the story. This format is common with PHP-Nuke and Slash based sites and requires your RSS feed to have <title> elements, which is not always the case. While this is a viable option it works best with unique sites, if you're running a computer news site rebroadcasting stories found elsewhere ask yourself what makes your site worth going to? If someone has a choice between a headline only and a full RSS feed for similar sites, They'll almost always take the full RSS feed site.

Another option is to use “teaser” descriptions. This method is used with the MovableType weblog software. Instead of sending the full posting it sends a stripped version of it, just a sentence or two long with no HTML coding. If the teaser interests the reader they'll have to go to your site to finish reading it, therefore giving you a pageview. This setup balances the full feed and the headline only feed nicely.

If you insist on using the full RSS feed about the only option available to let the user know about any advertising or donation links is to include a constant entry in the feed telling them this. Something similar to the following:

<item>
<title>Support This Site</item>
<link>http://www.domain.com/support.html</link>
<description>If you find this site valuable please consider donating today</description>
</item>

By including a polite reminder with your feed you get a “virtual” page view each time someone reads the feed.

Adding a RSS-XML feed to your site changes the dynamic of how your page is viewed. You may get many more readers but fewer page views as people read your site from separate progams. But changing how the feed is sent can easily counter and solve those problems.

What can users of news aggregators do? Remember that there are web sites providing you with these feeds and take time once a week to visit them and see what else they offer. Blogging is a two way street.