13 Ways To Encourage Blog Comments
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
27 Comments
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These are all great tips. I have used all of these to help get comments on my sites and client’s sites. They really do help.
I use intense debate has my commenting system. But it has a setting, if you are not a registered member of intense debate you can still comment without being a registered member. Plus it has plugins that use commentluv.
.-= element321´s amazing last blog ..Blogging Tips – Starting a New Blog =-.
good article
but some time it will mess up with the comment spam and probably authors choose to close comments after certain time
.-= chandan´s amazing last blog ..Whois script for personal pc with windows =-.
We keep ours open as we get a lot of our traffic from search rather than social media.
As to the question I would prefer cash thanks
I’ve seen blogs where the blogger posted the first comment and it’s not something I would do. It sort of gives the impression that you are starved for comments.
Like Mitch I also used to get a lot of one liners trying to get on the Top Commentator plugin, but I just deleted them and I reckon they got the message after awhile.
I think it’s a great idea that people write a post on how to get more comments, I know I’ve done a few
as long as they are unique in language and how it’s presented.
One way to get new comments is to make sure you’ve left something to comment on. If you’ve covered every possible base, even if you asked the question, what more is there for them to say?
.-= Sire´s amazing last blog ..Why I No Longer Link To The Likes Of ProBlogger And John Chow =-.
Cash always seems to be a winner.
‘It sort of gives the impression that you are starved for comments.’ This isn’t something I would do regularly but when done properly it can work a treat. The comment would have to fit the post, be an addition, an example etc;
For example, an ‘example comment’ would fit a post about a Gravatar or CommentLuv as you could then have a comment showing the Gravatar / CommentLuv link in action to support the topic of the post.
That’s a great point you raise, ‘If you’ve covered every possible base, even if you asked the question, what more is there for them to say?’.
Best wishes and thank you for taking the time to comment!
Are you kidding, I was born to comment. I just wish I had more time. Maybe there’s somewhere I could join where I would get paid to comment. Now that would be a treat.
Damn captchas. I hate when I forget to fill them out, especially when you lose the comment. I wonder how many people are turned away because of them? At least this one is pretty simple, as long as you can ad that is.
.-= Sire´s amazing last blog ..Why Marketing Your Ad Space Should Precede Marketing Your Blog =-.
We are playing with the idea of removing the captcha all together and seeing how it plays out.
Some of the tests we ran showed that the simple captcha wasn’t that simple.
The simple maths captcha is fairing better but we’ll have to see it how it goes (it’s early days with this one).
‘Maybe there’s somewhere I could join where I would get paid to comment. Now that would be a treat.
’ With all these paid to post and paid to tweet services I’m sure you’ll find such a service somewhere! lol
Well if I do I will be sure to do a post on it.
I actually don’t have a captcha as I find akismet does a pretty good job, and for those that get through I take great pleasure in spamming them so that Akismet can get them on the next time around.
.-= Sire´s amazing last blog ..Keyword Abusers Force Comment Policy Change =-.
That, plus Sire’s not good at math! lol
.-= mitch´s amazing last blog ..Is Instant Messaging Dying Out? =-.
Good stuff here, but I do have to make two comments.
One, I did have the Top Commenter plugin for about a year, but it just didn’t seem to generate good comments most of the time, as some people went through a bunch of posts and left one line comments that didn’t help the community out much.
Two, not sure if I’ve said it on this blog before or on another blog, but I’m one of those folks who has problems seeing your security code numbers. Sometimes I have to try 2 or 3 times to get it right; I have to admit that kind of stinks, and it’s not necessarily comment friendly, if you know what I mean.
.-= mitch´s last blog ..A New Thing In Subscribing To Comments =-.
Hi Mitch,
‘I did have the Top Commenter plugin for about a year, but it just didn’t seem to generate good comments most of the time.’
We are using this Top Commentators plugin http://webgrrrl.net/archives/my-top-commentators-widget-quick-dirty.htm because it allows you to set the reset date of your Top Comments. This can be set by a week-on-week or month-on-month basis. You’ll find the settings in the widgets area.
We have ours to reset at the beginning of each month as there is nothing more frustrating than seeing the top spot on a Top Commentator enabled site being held by someone with 100 plus comments.
We chose to this version of the plugin as we want all of our visitors to stand a chance of being featured.
‘I’m one of those folks who has problems seeing your security code numbers’, I totally understand where you are coming from with this as I have a colour deficiency that makes it difficult for me to identify certain colours; green, orange and red combinations being the hardest.
On that note we have switched to the simple maths captcha as it was something we have been meaning to do but never got round to (our apologies).
I hope this makes your commenting experience on our site a much easier and more rewarding experience Mitch!
Best wishes,
Kelly Foxley
Yes, that’s much easier to see and do; wonderful change.
As for your top commenter listing, I had to go see where it was here, and saw it’s showing no commenters. That’s not quite right, I’m thinking.
.-= mitch´s last blog ..Deciding When To Go To A Paid Model =-.
Thanks for being the first to test the new comment captcha, and glad you found it easier.
‘As for your top commenter listing, I had to go see where it was here, and saw it’s showing no commenters. That’s not quite right, I’m thinking…’ It reset today, being the 1st day of the month, this makes you our new Top Commentator being the first to comment so far.
Kelly Foxley
Goodness, I forgot it was the first of the month; oy! lol
.-= mitch´s last blog ..How Do You Feel About Blog Podcasting? =-.
Thanks for the retweet!
Sometimes having a dofollow is the best reward for commentors.
It can be a great incentive!
I like the idea of asking for comments. Too often we end our posts and forget to ask a question or two. It’s when we welcome others to share their thoughts we not only learn another point of view, but can make cyberfriends in the process.
Definitely. Asking for a comment is a perfect call to action to have at the end of a post.
‘It’s when we welcome others to share their thoughts we not only learn another point of view, but can make cyberfriends in the process…’ 100% agree, we have worked with people that we would never have had the privilege of meeting without having first taken the time to reach out and comment on their blog (and vice versa).
Best wishes,
Kelly-Anne
Excellent tips I never really thought of commenting on my own post.. hmm..
Thanks John, It never hurts to kick things-off.
There is nothing worse than not been able to leave a comment on a blog, it’s like those annoying blogger blogs that will only let you comment with an openid or a Google account Grrrr!
Karen @ Blazing Minds
I’m totally feeling the Grrrr on this one!
I have to comment now.
Ironically my first comment disappeared but then it could be my connectivity. Been having loads of problems lately.
Any how, back on topic, blog comments are the readers vote of confidence for that post, besides a back link. The only problem like many voters they have to be encouraged to do so.
Also, using a commenting tool like Disqus can also help to encourage as well as manage those comments as well as take away the need for those captcha’s. Sometimes its the captcha that discourages a lot of people to comment. Why, because they often do not work in some browsers.
Hi Robert,
Those captchas can be a real pain. I have to wear glasses for most reading tasks and some of the captchas use some insane background and text colour combinations that make it almost impossible for me to read.
I agree, Disqus and similar can be a great way of eliminating the need of a captcha. If you don’t want to use one of those dedicated comment platforms a captcha really does help reduce the comment spam.
Regards,
Kelly-Anne
Great article. I like leaving comments on blogs, but I see so many that say “comments are closed”, or “you must register”.
If you want comments, make it easy for people to leave them.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Kelly-Anne