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Sep
Every blogger loves getting new comments. Comments are blogging gold. Comments create 2 way conversation. Sometimes they add to the content of your posts. They create a community around your blog. So how do you get more of them?
- Ask Questions - Ask questions in the writing of your articles that may prompt readers to answer them in the comment section.
- Invite Comments - Have a small remark above your comment form inviting users to add to your topic. Ask readers to respond to points in the body of the article.
- Interact With Comments Left - Make sure you answer questions left in your comments section. Thank people who leave thoughtful comments.
- Be Open Ended - Try and leave areas of the topic uncovered, so that users can add their thoughts. Theoretically if you covered every possible aspect of a topic, there would be no points for readers to jump in and add.
- Have A Comments Policy - Have a post that you link to from your comments form that tell users your rules for leaving comments. If you are happy for readers to link to their relevant articles tell them that. I am working on this for Pingable.
- Reward Comments - Remove “nofollow” from your comments section, so that commentator’s sites get Google juice, their are plenty of plug-ins that make this task easy. Use recent comments or top commentators plug-ins.
- Make It Easy To Comment - Make sure your comment form is well designed and clear to read. A plug-in that helps usability is Ajax Edit Comments, which allows users to edit typos in comments they leave.
- Allow readers to subscribe to comments - If someone responds to their comment they will be more likely to respond to it if they know the response exists.
- Encourage lurkers to comment - Let those quiet readers know you are interested to hear from them. What would they like you to blog about?
Let me know what you think about this article. Have I left anything out? What else would you like to know about? I hope you found this article useful.
7 Responses to “How To Get More Comments On Your Blog”
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Hmmm, how embarrassing, I write an article about getting more comments and I fail to get a single comment in 3 days
Complete failure!
Awww, don’t feel bad, only just found this blog
I have recently installed Threaded comments, that has seem my number of comments jumped by about 10 or so per day!
Though of course, it’s multiple comments by one author, but still it’s nice to get.
Thanks for the tip Rhys, I might look into threaded comments. Also, good luck to Wales in the RWC, I hope you guys clean up those aussies in Cardiff!
As an Aussie, I should probably be affronted in a patriotic sense, but I absolutely have no interest in Rugby
Thrash them by all means!
I really liked your idea of being open ended. I tend to try and cover all angles in my posts and I find that sometimes it seems as if readers are only able to say they enjoyed the post but don’t have anything to add. It might be a good idea to leave one or two points unsaid so that readers can chip in.
I also kind of like the idea of an article being completed and loose ends tied in the comments section.
Hehe, I wouldn’t take it too personally Skellie, I love Australia, just when it comes to the sports field I feel it is my duty as a New Zealander to support any team playing aussie!!! That’s just the way it is. As always, thanks for your comment Skellie.
Hey, you also inspired me to write this one! hehe
I think this was a great post - I’m going to try to implement this when writing in my own blog to see if it generates more comments
Great that you found it a useful resource. Thanks for visiting.