Blog Comment

Yesterday was World Blog Surf Day and I spend a lot of time surfing the participating blogs and leaving comments on most of them. Why only on most, and not on all, I will explain soon. As I surfed around the blogosphere I noticed how differently blog commenting is handled by different blogging software and/ or by different bloggers.
‘How do I get more comments on my blog? is a problem a lot of bloggers face, often not being aware of the fact that sometimes they make it damm’ difficult for others to leave a comment on their very blogs! So here my tips and tricks and ABC and 123 or what-you-call-it guide to blog comments plus my usual rants and musings:

1. Make it dead easy to find where to leave / post a blog comment.
Blogspot or Google blogs seem to be the worst offenders here, sometimes I really find it difficult to find the link, to click to be able to make comments in the first place. Look into your lay-out options and try to figure out how you can make it easier for people to find the comment form. MAke it so easy that even your silver-surfing Granny could do it!

2. Invite people to leave a blog comment.
Don’t beg for comments like a certain feline guest blogger I know Instead end your blog post with a question, ask for opinions etc. Simply leave room for comments, so to speak. And perhaps, see Point 1, even end with a direct link to your blog comment form. Something like this: If you have any further questions regarding blog comments, please click Leave a comment on this blog post!

3. Answer and moderate comments.
I often find blogs with a lot of comments and questions, but the blog owner never comes back to the questions and suggestions. Also if it can happen that a comment slips through without being acknowledged, in general I try to respond to each comment. I think that is a great way to show my blog readers that I value their input and to encourage them to leave more comments on my blog. I really dislike blogs that never moderate their comments section and where meaningful comments are mixed with spam and abuse. I don’t have a comment policy published, but if I do so one day, then it would be most likely somewhere on the lines of Problogger’s Comment policy. And again, really, clean up your comment section, people, it is disgusting to find p… comments amongst food comments!

4. Avoid signing up and logging in traps and delays.
One other thing that really annoyed the heck out of me yesterday, was that some blogs wanted me to sign into either my google or wordpress account to be able to post my comment. And here we come to the “leaving comments on most” bit of the story. I simply refuse to leave a comment on blogs that either ask me to sign up with their network, like multiply blogs do, or that don’t allow me to post with my name / url and ask me to sign into a google, wordpress or whatever account. Don’t get me wrong, I do have google, wordpress and livejournal and a lot of other accounts BUT if I want to leave a comment, I want to do it with the url that is the most relevant NOT just a random profile page. And what REALLY annoys me if such a requirement pops up after I have already written my comment and then can’t publish it. Just for the fun, and the exercise, of it, sign out of your blogging account and try to leave a comment as somebody else on your blog. Is it easy, how does it work, could somebody who never done it before do it without difficulty???

5. Make commenting rewarding.
Commenters add content to our blogs, for free, so I only find it just to give something back to them. That is the reason why all comments here at my blog are set to do-follow and have keyword luv enabled. That allows the people to comment and receive an anchored backlink in return. Cool! Only drawback is that since I have these two plugins enabled, the amount of spam has increased, I even see searches appearing in my Google Anlytics that read like this: “”uses keywordluv” dofollow” what means that spammers look out actively for blogs that have these two features enabled. BUT, still the advantages for my readers, and for me, are so big, that I happily put up with the increased amount of spam comments. So if you want to go down that route look/ search for do-follow plugins/ settings and the keyword luv plugin.

6. Make it easy to come back to your blog and see new comments.
If you spend a lot of time in the blogosphere then you will appreciate this little feature “Notify me of follow up comments via e-mail.” after the comment box. This means I can subscribe to the blog post I want to keep track of, not the whole blog. I will get an email each time, somebody posts a new comment and hopefully it will be the blog owner that answered to my questions and suggestions (See Point 3) This is by far my most favourite feature as a blog reader! And it keeps me going back to blogs I have previously commented on…

So, in a nutshell (yeah, agin, I know):

Keep your comments section moderated, make it easy to find and to comment on your blog and interact with your readers.

I am sure I missed some great tips about ‘How to attract more comments to a blog.’ So feel free to leave a comment on my blog post by clicking the link