10 RSS Subscription Box Designs Dissected
It’s a fact. Readers want RSS updates. They are easier to manage, to search and follow. And when readers wanted them, bloggers provide.
Have you ever wanted to subscribe to a blog’s feed, but no matter how much you searched, you could not find the link? It’s frustrating!
The RSS subscription box is one of the most important elements of your blog’s design. It offers a good deal of branding solutions and it can turn out to be decisive in your readers’ choice of following (or not) your updates.
Let’s observe together these 10 RSS subscription box designs and draw conclusions at the end upon the DO’s and DON’T’s.
FlashDen Blog
David Torondel
Lutův Blog
Loodo
We Are Not Freelancers
Adi Pintilie
BrumBrum – Chris Brummel
Whitley Journalism
Ciclismo Urbano
BienBienBien
RSS Subscription Design Tips
Nice designs right? So, based on them, what conclusions can be drawn?
RSS placement
- The link must be visible;
- Best choices are the top banner (header) and top of sidebar (s).
RSS link size
- Definitely not huge;
- Medium works best;
- Good placement can compensate for a smaller size.
RSS design
- Casual users are used to the RSS logo;
- Integrate the design with the overall blog layout;
- Play with the icon, but keep some elements of the original design.
Extra options
- Add a message, encourage visitors to subscribe;
- Add an email delivery option.
I’m sure that if you follow these (not so many) rules, your RSS subscription box will definitely boost your subscriber count, not to mention the good effects on your blog’s design.
Note: This post marked the launch of a new post category on Blogsessive – Blog Design – covering design tips and inspiration.
-
- Spread the love!
- StumbleUpon
- Digg
- Delicious
- Fast & Free RSS updates?
- Join the 1,058 subscribers NOW!
More Blogsessive Content
This article has 24 comments
Add a comment
4 blog posts linking to this article
- MoJo DoJo » Multimedia for the Writer’s Soul
- Rediseño de Ciclismo Urbano / Quiltro
- Get more traffic with good web design | Web Design | Web Design Blog | Design Shard |
- 10 tips help you design your own professional Blogger layout | Lam Nguyen’s Blog
Loading ...
Good and well dissected examples.
My subscription area in sidebar could really use some work. I get most subscriptions from link under post which is as (if not more) important as sidebar one.
Rarst: Indeed, the area below the posts is a good placement for a second alternative. That’s why I recently decided to redo my own to the one that displays now, the “lovely” one.
Yeah, yours looks great. Being designer is sooo unfair advantage for blogging.
I remade area after content at my blog yesterday. Some suggestions from blog critique, some things I had planned but lazy to do. Not too pretty with my skills but still improvement over what it was.
Flashden’s is absolutly perfect in my opinion, I wish I had their design skills.
Thanks a lot for the reference.
Loodo is a blog about games & game design, and part of our proposal is about showing that almost any communication can be done in the format of a game.
That RSS Box has the name “Loodo” hidden, too.
Nice post. I completely agree.
Nice one. There are some very creative designs in your list. I do not always agree (I don’t like some designs). BTW I like your RSS design too.
Mine is pretty simple: one big RSS button, and two smaller to give the visitor more options (one to subscribe directly in different readers, one to subscribe by mail). I hope you like my design too
Danny, I love their design too.
Raphael, you’re welcome. You did a great job on the overall design, but what I love the most is the top menu. Reminds me of so many childhood games!
EverybodyGeek I did not pick “10 amazing designs”, but rather 10 different designs. It’s OK not to like some. What would happen if would we all liked the same things? We’d all do the same things and the web would become pretty boring.
Thanks for your appreciation in regards to my own design. Your is one that does the job and fits well in to the overall design.
Love this examples
I absolutely love that first design you posted! It seems funny and very effective. I’ve seen it on quite a lot of blogs lately and I imagine more will use this icon in the near future. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really fit my blogs
another nice idea: footer of http://www.tomatic.com
Irony alert… your blog doesn’t have an obvious way to subscribe to a feed. I’m sure you’re working on it though. Thanks for the important reminders.
oops. never mind. I just found it. Was it there 5 mins ago?
Andy, it was there, but you probably accessed the site just when I re-uploaded the sidebar, containing some new elements.
Also, there’s not one, but two ways to subscribe. The second is at the end of the posts.
Great post. The ‘We Are Not Freelancers’ is pretty cool but I think it might not be too obvious to everyone that it’s the rss subscription link.
Very nice information.
I totally agree that the RSS image & text used has a huge effect.
A good & “worked on” RSS image makes me think that the site is frequently updated & that’s the reason blog owner is pushing the RSS seriously.
Hey there, great listing.
I prefer the hanging rss-icon. It looks simple but cool. And I really like the sitting rss-reading man!
I already linked this post on my blog.
Well, what do I know? I am so glad that I have the same icon (the one sitting on a bench) you have on this post, and my readers really like it.
I have also one for email subscription, and an invitation request at the end of every post.
You have a good collection here but as of now,I am contented with what I have.
Thanks for sharing though.
I came here the other day from a twitter link. Your post inspired me to rethink my RSS feed button. Well, I decided to add the words “subscribe to Zakka Life” above my feed counter. The next day my readers increased by a little over 100! Usually it takes me a month to gain 100 more readers. So, a sincere THANK YOU for this post.
kind regards,
jessica
Thanks everyone for your comments!
ThomasP, thanks for the link love.
Jessica: Indeed, a message can work miracles. Even if a picture is worth a thousand words. Not every visitor is familiar with the RSS logo, or the whole idea of feeds, but the concept of “subscriptions” is pretty generic. Congrats on the sensible improvement!
Loved the examples and now feel compelled to rework my RSS feeds immediately. Will share this post and thanks for the time in putting it together.
Really a cut and nice idea to implement.
Thanks for the links !
I think adding an email delivery option is very important, it’s something I’ve been meaning to add on my blog. There are some good designs here, they are inspiring me to jazz up my RSS box to something that stands out more.