Some ways to encourage visitors to comment
Comments are a very important aspect of blogging. The ability to contribute to articles allows readers to participate in the topic in question. The number of comments in blog posts is usually a pretty good indication of how popular the blog is.
How to encourage readers to comment?
When your blog is still new you may struggle to get some or even any comments to your posts. If you continue to update your blog with good posts though the comments will come in time however there are a number of methods you can use to encourage comments to your post.
- Avatars - Whether you use Gravatars, MyBlogLog, Bumpzee or your blogs hosted avatar service, a small picture next to a commentators message goes a long way in making your blog more friendly and colourful.
- Present your comments in a good way - The way your comment area is designed can greatly affect how many comments you get. Try and make the letter font large and easy to read. I’ve seen some blogs where ive had to zoom in to see the messages because the font size is way to small.
- Ask your readers questions - I like to pose questions in my posts sometimes to encourage readers to post. You should see an increase in commentating if you start to ‘include’ your readers in your posts rather than just writing your posts like a guide.
- Look after your regular commentators - There are a lot of ways you can and should reward your regular commentators. For example :
- A top commentators list
- Removing the no folllow tag for their blog link
- Linking to their blogs occasionally when referring to something a commentator said on on your blog
- Competitions - Competitions and prizes are a great way to reward those who comment on your site.
Overview
This is a short post but i wanted to highlight that getting comments on your blog isn’t only about writing good posts. Some encouragement and a friendly nudge in your commentators direction can go a long way in making your blog discussions more active.
Success Online | May 29th, 2007 at 9:48 am #
Well then… stop by for a visit everyone and get involved would ya?
LOL
Great points.
I will have to follow this up with the importance of “engaging” your readers
John | May 29th, 2007 at 10:56 am #
Ask your readers questions - has got the be the best way to increase the number of comments it also helps turn it into more of a conversation rather than a lecture.
Now I just need to apply it more myself…
Tay | May 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm #
Once again Kevin, another fantastic post! I agree with you 100% here. =)
Community Building Blog | May 29th, 2007 at 6:35 pm #
As well as removing the ‘nofollow’ attribute, it is also important that you publicise the fact; otherwise nobody will know that you reward those that interact with your blog!
This, combined with inviting comments through questions helps get the comment counts up on my blog.
- Martin Reed
SavingDiva | May 30th, 2007 at 7:38 am #
This is very useful post. Since I have such a new blog, I don’t have very much traffic. I will try a few of these techniques to squeeze a few comments out of the readers that stop by my page.
arrgophil | May 30th, 2007 at 8:10 pm #
You have very helpful info. I am new at this and you have given me some insight. Thanks.
Rob O. | June 17th, 2007 at 10:52 am #
I’m sorta boxed into a corner with regard to how much I can do with formatting & presentation of comments because 2Dolphins is a Classic Blogger-based blog.
But I’ve been striving to make my posts more open-ended and phrased to prompt for input. But I’m still not garnering many comments in spite of the fact that my stats do indicate that I’m gradually attracting more visitors.
Any additional suggestions or ideas would sure be welcome!