10 Easy Ways to Increase Blog Commenting
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Everyone wants more blog comments - enough never seems to be enough. As a blogger, you can get addicted to how much feedback you’re generating. Be careful that you’re not posting just to be controversial, instead of focusing on the value of your post itself.
Having said that, with a few exceptions, posts that inspire comments from your audience can become part of what makes your blog more popular, and can keep it that way if the comments keep coming. Right or wrong, blog comments are seen as an indication of how successful your blog is.
1- Make it as easy as possible to comment.
No logging in before commenting, don’t force them to validate their email address, don’t moderate comments, no captchas, and let people know comments aren’t moderated.
Later, you can re-enable any of these to stem the flow of either real comments, spam or both.
2- Find out what people want to know on your topic and write about that constantly.
If your sites is about pet lovers, and people want to know all about organic dog and cat food, write about it. It might not be your favorite topic, but if it brings you engaging traffic, make it a regular conversation point. Your site is there to serve your population.
3- Stay on topic.
Even if you have a themed day that’s a little outside your topic area (like our Tool Time Fridays with Morgan Lighter) make sure all those posts can still relate back to your central subject.
For example, the other day, Morgan wrote about a tool that can turn YouTube videos into a format compatible with iTunes. Put that together with some of my tips on how to get traffic with web video and you have a whole new use for recordings you uploaded to YouTube and other sites.
4- Post regularly to become part of your reader’s daily habits.
People are habitual creatures. They’ll most likely find your site and include it in their new habits through doing one of their old habits.
Today, someone got up, brushed their teeth, got ready for work, went to their office, read their email, then the news or their RSS feeds (or both.) If they found your site through some other blog’s feed they read, and decided to add you, whenever you have a new entry, they’ll at least read the headline.
That opportunity only comes up each time you publish. After that first six weeks, it’s not as important that you’re doing so daily. But you should be putting up posts in a predictable fashion IF you want regular commenters. Whether it’s approximately every 24 hours, or every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:21 pm isn’t as important as making it a regular occurrence.
5- Leave an open-ended question or query at the end of each post.
If you look at Chris Pirillo’s blogs over at Lockergnome, instead of “Leave a Reply” above the comment form, it often says something like “What do you think?” Sometimes I change mine to “What Are Your Thoughts?”
In addition, when you create a post, the last sentence of your post can be a question to your audience that allows them to continue the conversation. If all other barriers are removed from commenting, sometimes the issue is that you’ve done such a good job writing the article that there’s nothing else to add.
Remember the last date you had? Chances are you asked the other person questions that would have to go beyond yes or no, in order to get them to open up to you. Most of us do it subconsciously. The people who are Really good with people already have questions in mind. We ask things like where they live, what they do, if they enjoy their jobs, etc., and the conversation continues.
Leaving your post open to input stimulates conversation online in the same way.
6- Give incentives for responding.
When people leave me comments, one of the first things I do is visit their site. If it’s an okay site and not spam, I make a point of telling at least one other person about it, usually someone on the staff or a friend, or I’ll comment on the site to let them know I’ve been there. They visited my site and left a comment, and I’d at least like to reciprocate.
If it’s good, I’ll find a recent blog post to add to del.icio.us, post the link on Facebook, or otherwise share via Social Media. If it’s great, I’ll write a blog post about them and send them a trackback, or submit it to more than one Social Media site, usually one with more traffic like Stumble Upon or Digg. I’m also a DoFollow blogger.
If you make a habit of reciprocating, you’ll be cementing the relationship. Not all of them will flourish and bloom into long-term partnerships or even friendships. But the ones that do are worth hundreds of the ones that don’t.
7- Interact with people in conversational communities.
I mentioned Facebook earlier. It can be a major source of traffic for you in dozens of different ways, and it’s not the only site that will send you daily traffic. This is one of the bigger secrets to interactive communities.
You want to find sites where conversations are already taking place. That’s it. Whether it’s Google Groups, Facebook, other forum sites, your own forums, sites like StumbleUpon, or Q and A communities, you want to go where people are already talking about the topic you specialize in, or a topic you want to know about that is related to your market.
It is much easier to jump into hundreds of discussions taking place and help advance one, than to attempt to start hundreds of conversations on your own.
Bonus hit: start the conversations with a pre-planned group of fellow bloggers, family or friends the first few weeks. Even if you’re writing for the same blog, when people see that comments are being made, they’ll follow with more comments. After a week or so, you won’t need to plan at all.
8- Engage the blogosphere.
Obviously other blogs have the conversational communities you want to join. Don’t just comment once and leave, comment weekly, even daily. Engage. Track the comments you leave to see who is responsive and start relationships with those people. Link to another blog from a blog post. Send a trackback. Share the posts you find.
Every month or so, make a point to discover new blogs.
9 - Respond to all your comments. Make an effort to do so as quickly and predictably as possible.
Realistically, we can’t be at our computers twenty four hours a day just waiting for someone to post so we can answer right away. It’s just not happening. Some times I write my posts days in advance so following my comment feed doesn’t help me– I might not remember what post you’re talking about?
So instead, I check in every day and answer comments, approximately every 24 hours, all at once. Of course, I’m also not actively attempting to generate more blog comments. Now they just happen as a result of the momentum we started years ago. To help kick start your own momentum, answer each and every comment.
You should even acknowledge the generic comments (as long as they aren’t spam). One of the reasons is that people often look at the number of comments on a post to decide which one to read. The logic (erred as it may be) is that the post where all the action is has to be the best post on the site.
10 - Install plugins that highlight comments and those who make them, on your blog.
Especially if you have WordPress, there are plugins you can use to feature conversations in your sidebars, and even link to the people who are making the most comments. If your site isn’t busy, don’t worry, most of them can be easily configured to accommodate different activity levels.
Being a blogger, professional or otherwise, is no walk in the park. There’s work involved, and someone has to do it. If that someone is you, avoid being overwhelmed by arming yourself with knowledge, forming a plan, and then working it to reach your goals. And remember, blog comments aren’t necessarily a measure of how well your blog is doing. But a responsive community can help indicate whether you’re on the right track.
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Categories: blog traffic, blogging
As always - great tips. I’ve already reset the settings on my blog for comment moderation. Now I just need to figure out how to best apply some of tips.
Thanks
Thanks for your tips. This is quite valuable information. I have enabled comments on my blog. one question I’m trying to find an answer to is: how many visitors do you need a week/month to enable them to write comments. I just started out my blog, but that information will become relevant later for me (I hope).
Amazing. You always hit the nail on the head and explain everything so clearly that ‘even a caveman’ can do it - of course I’m referring to me.
Thanks!
That’s a very Thoughtful Post Tinu,
I’m sure it will be helpful for many including my own Blogs. Can You really be so clear in the Post until there is nothing else to share about the subject? You know I never thought about that angle. You are really
causing me think about that avenue. What I’ve been doing is what
I call flying under the radar, because really that is what is most ideal
in the principle of keep it simple. Tinu really, sometime I just can’t help but to wonder, I’m I trying to hard to be strait to the point?
To me it seems so glaringly easy to understand or is this just a gift
built in to who I am as a person. I’m finding my self constantly trying
to stay low and gentle when handling the written word. Having such
a great appreciation for design of words and arrangements used in communications is so awesome and amazing to me. Well I’m going to
make myself stop now because this is a comment and not an article.
Be Blessed always…Peace!
Patty,
Thanks, and let me know if you have questions.
Andras,
It’s not always a function of the number of visitors, or even percentages of who reads what. You could be getting 1000 visitors a day and none of them will comment — it’s all about how good the content is, as well as how much you inspire people to interact. And that’s if they are interactive types — there’s lots of great bloggers who just don’t have the type of audience that responds to what they read.
Jim,
It’s quite possible, not that you’re trying too hard, but that when you write, you end on a closed point. That’s how we’re taught in school, tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you said. Doesn’t leave room for discussion.
So it’s not so much that there is nothing else to share, but perhaps that there’s not much to say on the topic in the first place, and once you’ve made the post, all that’s left to say is thanks.
I used to write like this a lot. An example would be news coverage. Someone write a post saying, here’s a link to a story you might like, here’s why you might like it. And what happens? The person clicks the link. They don’t stay to comment and then leave, they revert to the natural default online behavior, which is to surf.
Which is why you have to do things to spark an interruption in that loop. You be blessed too!
Thanks, and hope to see you all again soon.
Hi Tinu,
Interestingly I’ve already been using LinkedIn questions and answers and find my traffic blips when I answer a question well!
Jim
More of a traffic tip than a commenting tip, but yes, I’ve had similar results. I have a whole series on LinkedIn for later this year.
Great tips. You advise staying on topic and posting what your readers want. My blog is more random and trendy, is there any hope for a blog that talks about anything and everything?
Thanks for the kudos.
If your site is about being random and trendy, then the theme is still there, just more hidden. That theme would be things you’re interested in. The target market would be people like you. I haven’t been to your site yet, so I don’t know if it’s a personal or professional blog or what. I also don’t know if you’re trying to be more visible, make more money from ads, from sales — I’d need to know what type of success you’re attempting to reach before I can give even general suggestions of how to get there.
In the mean time, I think there’s hope for a blog that rambles, so long as it’s either a personal blog, or if it is rambling around some loosely centralized theme like your life or your interests or your friends. If Seinfeld can make it being about nothing, why want you?
These are the good tips. Thanks!
As always, great tips Tinu.
I know for myself in commenting if there is any extra work involved, I will click away and not bother to leave a comment at all. When I first started Home with Heather I had the comments locked up so tight, that you had to be a brain surgeon to figure out how to leave one. Then wondered why I never got any
Kelly,
I appreciate your kind words.
Heather!
Great to see you around here. To what do we owe the honor? And girl, I think we all figured that one out the hard way. I only learned this when I was attempting to slow traffic at the site when I knew I’d be away, and I said “well, when there are more comments, it seems to start a chain reaction. why don’t I lock them down?” LOL…. duh! The reverse is also true.
I have found that if you mention specific people in your blogs (especially other bloggers) that there is a good chance that they will leave a comment - it’s a great way to get the conversation started on your own blog.
Great suggestions, Tinu. Your site is a good model as well. I like the comment count you feature as well as the “u comment, i follow” button below the comment box.
By the way, that 1972 block entry is a funny idea.
Hi Ariel,
Love your site design. Thanks for the lovely compliments. And few people notice that 1972 entry.
Hi Tinu,
Great Tips. I have already removed the moderation while reading the post. I think its a great idea for a startup ( couple months old ) blog like me to remove comment moderation. Also looking forward to help from fellow blogger in existing in Blogosphere
.
Thanks,
Kishalaya
Hi Tinu,
I appreciate your comments as well as the step-by-step format (or as Bill Murray said in “What About Bob” baby steps). It’s quite an education and your blog comments are a great update/accompaniment to Evergreen.
I finally got the blog built this weekend. It’s just a shell but at least it’s more than something “I plan on doing.”
And the clouds parted… You’ve answered a question I didn’t even realize that I had! Coming from a Journalism background, I almost always try to “tie things up” and close the subject. By looking at posts as part of a conversation rather than a block of information, I bet it won’t take long to get some decent threads started. Thanks for the lesson. I was beginning to get discouraged-I am now pumped and ready to write!
Hi Kishalaya,
Yes, when your comment queue isn’t particularly busy, removing moderation gives people the instant gratification they’re often in search of.
However, if you start getting a steady slew of borderline spam, etc., you’ll want to turn moderation back on.
Hi Paul,
Love that movie. And good for you on having it built. Start filling it with baby steps as well, just don’t publish the posts until you start writing on a regular basis. Then you can go back and space out those posts and always be ahead of your writing.
I’m glad you enjoyed Evergreen.
Hi Jon,
I had the same issue because I used to write for print publications too! So leaving things close ended just seemed like a good idea to me. Some things seem like they’re obvious but they’re just… not. Glad this helped!
Hi there I enjoy your throughts on getting traffic I been using some of the techniques that you provided and its working well, is just takes a lot of work. So thank you again for the tips, take care.