Intro To Commenting & Blogs

You can set up pages on your website to accept visitor’s comments. If a visitor posts a comment, they will see it immediately, but no one else will see it until you have approved it for posting. This ensures that no defamatory content can be posted to your website.

You also have the option of being notified by email in real time when someone posts a comment. You can then go into ‘Activate Comments’ and decide to hide it from view or post it to your website by ‘activating’ the comment.

Some of the advantages of allowing blog comments are being able to have feedback on the posted articles and knowing that people are actually reading the material. Replying to those who comment on a blog can be advantageous in several ways. First, it lets readers know there is a live person behind the blog and that he or she is interested in the comments. Second, once there are several blog comments, this often encourages even more visitors to post.

This type of continued growth can lead to new subscribers, which will increase the success of the blog. A disadvantage of allowing comments on a blog is the risk that no one will end up commenting or there may only be one person who comments.

A blog without comments or with only the odd one can appear to be irrelevant or poorly written even when this is not the case. Many times, readers find blogs randomly during a general topic search and may spend only seconds scanning a blog's content. If they find an interesting conversation occurring in the blog comments section, visitors to the site may become more involved with the content and may even bookmark the page to plan on returning.

How to Get More people To Comment

1. Have a Clear Comment Policy - Your comment policy offers an opportunity to inform readers about the benefits of commenting on your blog e.g. some blogs offer “do-follow” links in the comment which are very valuable for SEO backlinking.  Some use plugins like Comment Luv or Top commentators offering improved visibility to those who comment. Others reply to every comment. Highlight any such benefit of commenting on your blog so readers understand the true benefits of participating in discussions.

2. Ask Readers to Comment - A study has found that explicitly asking your website visitors to comment generates 4 times more comments than without. The same applies to comments as well. Many bloggers have reported increase in comments by simply asking readers to comment typically at the end of the post.

3. Ask a Question - Asking a question towards the end of your posts is widely used and very effective technique for encouraging comments. Asking a specific question encourages readers to answer through comments.

4. Make it Easy to Comment - Let’s take an example. One of the most commented-on posts on Copyblogger, is a post on “38 Critical Books Every Blogger Needs to Read”. At the end of the post, the author asks people to list any books they love, and would add to the list. This worked so well because everyone has a favorite book, and simply listing the book in a comment requires no effort (as opposed to answering a question that takes more time and thought). In other words, the author made it very easy to comment.

5. Reply to Your Comments - Interacting with readers who comment is a great way to build conversation and discussion around your topic. It also contributes to the content of the page whilst allowing you to connect and engage with your readers. It also lets your readers feel appreciated and builds a sense of community.

6. Offer an Incentive - Offering a reward for commenting on your blog is another great way to encourage readers to comment. You can offer a fee e-book or resource to those who leave their first comment. Or you can feature them on the top commentators’ widget on your homepage.
See image of top commentator’s widget below.

7. Maintain Quality of Your Comments - Comment spam is very common on blogs. Never auto publish all comments on your blog without moderation as it will lead to tons of spam comments on your blog. Maintaining comment quality by moderating comments is important if you want to attract genuine valuable comments. Free plugins such as. “Akismet” that is pre-installed with WordPress (but requires activation) is a great tool to block spam and moderate comments on your blog.

8. Comment on Other Blogs - Commenting on other blog is a great way to get noticed by other bloggers. Bloggers actively keep a close watch on who participates on their blog regularly and will often return the favor by commenting on your blog.

9. Write on Popular Topics - Writing popular blog posts covering topics in demand such as about Facebook, Twitter or other hot trends tend to attract more readers and comments. There are many free tools such as Google trends that you use to find trending topics in demand.

10. Use Videos or Images - You can write an entire post around an interesting video or image. Alternatively, if a majority of your posts are text only, try to update those relevant media. Images and videos make the post more appealing and tend to attract more viewers and comments.