one tells me that someone subscribed through the main navigation button, and that it was an e-mail subscription. You can set the part inside the ' ' to anything you want. This is just my system for tracking. I know that's a bit confusing, but I'm not sure how better to explain it. It's relatively complex stuff, but it's well worth the effort. I wish you would have tested "subscribe" versus "subscribe for free." That would have provided a better test of your theory. Instead, I think you proved that it's important to give readers a reason to subscribe and "Get jobs by e-mail" is a good reason. Rachel (and others), if your readers don't know what RSS is, you offer email as the primary subscription method. In non-RSS-savvy markets (which is most of them), I promote the email subscription prominently, then stick an orange RSS button below for those in the know. This brings up a good point about educating our readers about feed readers. I post to my blog six days a week, and I've had people unsubscribe from the e-mail updates because they get too many. Of course, a feed reader resolves that issue, but educating my readers about this easy peasy solution is the key. After reading this post I changed the header of my RSS link. I never sat down and really thought about the average internet intelligence of people. I never have really thought of myself as particularly savvy, but after reading this I