I was reading a post by Darren Rowse, analyzing the effect that RSS Readers have on the blog visitors.
I agree with him and following is my take on this topic.
1. Build a Community, forget the Traffic
One can have about 100 readers, visiting their blog but they may all be one-off readers. They find the blog uninteresting and never return. But RSS Readers help build a community. Once a reader find some interesting posts, they subscribe to the RSS feed, hoping to get more interesting posts from the blogger. By generating good posts, if the blogger manages to build a relationship, a community is born. A community of readers is essential for any blog and not the number of visitors
2. RSS Feeds convey the message, Crisp and Clean
Many a times, I find it lot easier and simpler, to read the posts through the reader than by directly visiting the blog. Also I have noticed that the average time taken to read the posts and understand the idea, is lot lesser in case of RSS Feeds
3. Optimize RSS Feeds for easier sharing
Using Feedflare, one can greatly improve the way that the feeds are rendered. It is possible to share the post via Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious etc., just at the click of a link. Also, Google Reader is wonderful in sharing good posts with a community of friends, thus spreading the message fast
4. Monetize using Google Adsense for Feeds
Google Adsense for Feeds is awesome. Many a times I have wondered at the relevance of the Ads to the post topic. Bloggers can leverage this to make money from blogging
So RSS feeds are a great way to share ideas and propogate them, really fast.