Before I get to the main focus of this post I have a question I would like to ask you. You’ll find the question hidden somewhere in the article so, no cheating, don’t skip, read the article and when you find my question all will become clear!

So you’ve been blogging for a while now and you still don’t have any comments!

If you know for certain that you are getting visitors to your blog, maybe because your Clicky Web Analytics has a good amount of data showing you where your visitors are coming from and what pages they visited, maybe it’s time to take a look at some ways to get the comment ball rolling.

1. Enable Commenting

At first glance this may seem like a silly suggestion but I can assure you that some people simply forget to enable commenting (or don’t know how to enable this feature).

If you are using Wordpress you’ll want to double check that you have the necessary tick boxes ticked. You’ll find your comment settings under the tools tab by clicking on where it says discussion in your Wordpress admin area.

I would recommend moderating your comments to reduce comment spam.

2. Remove Any Barriers

I come across a lot of great blog articles that compel me to comment only to find I have a barrier in the way, ‘you must register to leave a  comment’.

There are only a few sites that I will register with just so I can leave a comment and these are industry leaders in my chosen field.

If you want people to register for your site then allow this feature but I would recommend turning off compulsory registration for blog commenting.

You can find the check box to remove the requirement for your blog readers to have to register before being able to comment under the discussion tab as mentioned above.

3. Be Clear About Who You Are

Be sure to change your blog user name from admin to something that your users will be able to recognise and engage with. Sharing your name adds a personal dimension to your blog and allows you to instantly identifiable when commenting on other people’s blogs.

I also recommend you grab a Gravatar and allow people to see the face behind the blog.

4. Read The Leading Blogs In Your Niche

Find blogs in your niche and look at their content. What content gets the most comments, retweets, Diggs, etc.

Study a few of the different blogs and try to determine what in the articles elicited the comments from the readers, what did the blog author write that compelled users to engage with the article?

Take notes and apply them to your next blog article.

5. Just Ask

Seriously, sometimes you really need to ask people to do something. Are you regularly asking your readers to comment?

Try adding a line at the end of each post that says:

‘Do you have something to say? I’d love to hear from you so leave me a comment below.’

You should be able to easily come up with something better than that.

6. Mix It Up

Mix it up a little. Sometimes we get stuck in a particular writing format that we feel most comfortable with. If your blog articles are a collection of lists then try writing a ‘how-to guide’ and vice versa.

Your readers will love you for providing them with a bit of variety. Here are examples from this site:

• Are you writing email marketing messages that suck? (cautionary)
• Finally, a secure tell-a-friend script (informative)
• How to install a Wordpress Blog using Simple Scripts (instructional)
• 30 plus ways to generate traffic (list)

There are other types of formats to play around with so be sure to give them a go.

7. Reward Your Commetators

There are lots of unique ways to reward your readers who take the extra step and leave you a comment. You can install plugins such as CommentLuv, Top Commentators and user Testimonials. These all allow you, in one-way-or-another, to reward those who leave a comment.

You can find more great Wordpress plugins to enhance your comments at Wordpress.org’s Plugins Directory.

8. Engage Your Content

Another great way to illicit comments is to share your blog posts directly with a community of people that are happy to read quality content and take action.

Karl recently wrote an article about the BlogEngage community and the response that post got was brilliant. A lot of people that not only voted for the post over at the BlogEngage website also took the time to leave a comment; you guys rock!

Read that post and then become a part of the community and I’m sure you will get the comments flooding in.

9. Kick Things Off

I wouldn’t do this one that often but sometimes people like to follow what other people are doing. With that being said, it can be worth while being the first person to comment on your own post. How would you do this?

Instead of editing the post and adding a P.S. that you may have left out, you could add this information as a blog comment; this often encourages people to follow suit.

Some examples for you to play with:

If you write a post about blog commenting you could then leave a comment to illustrate what a good comment looks like.

If you write a post about the benefits of using a Gravatar, you could then leave a comment with the purpose of showing your readers what a Gravatar looks like in action.

10. Be A Blog Commentator

This is a great way to kick of your comments! Find blogs in your niche and start leaving valuable comments that add to the blog’s community and you may just find the blog owner and the blog readers returning the favour in kind.

11. Write A Post About The Benefits of Blog Commenting

Some visitors to your website may not know the difference between a blog and a typical website. Inform your readers about the benefits of blogging and blog commenting as these types of posts can help the newbie get started, and what a better place to start than right there on your blog.

12. Rinse and Repeat

Don’t just ask your readers once and once only, ask them again and again. Instead of having one post where you ask your readers for feedback why not do it on every post or every other post, what ever feels frequent enough for you and your readers. You could aslo write more than one blog post about blog commenting. Play around with what works for you and keep at it!

13. Contests

This has to be one of the best ways to generate a lot of comments on a blog post. Run a comment contest!

People love to win things and what better way than to hold a blog comment contest and give out prizes to the people that leave you with the best comments.

Talking about comment contests I have a question for you:

‘If we ran a comment contest on FMS SEO what would you like to win?’

Would you prefer a cash prize, a physical prize such as an I-Pod, DS Lite, or maybe a clickbank product of choice?

Should there be one main prize or a series of runner-up prizes? What do you think the commenting criteria should be?

You can let us know in the comment section below and then look forward to the contest at the some time towards the end of January (we want it to be special so we are going to spend some time planning it properly).

I look forward to reading your suggestions.

Best wishes,

Kelly-Anne Foxley

photo credit: hectorir